A Guilt-Free Life

We may be tall or short. Our eyes may be brown or blue or green. We may have strong or weak emotions. We may find it easier or harder to be happy. But we all feel guilt. Guilt is a universal experience. It does not discriminate between people. It does not select only certain personality types. Everyone experiences it—except possibly a few people without much of a conscience.

We talk of guilt. We talk about it when we consider how much food we ate at a really good meal. We talk about it when we think about doing something we think isn’t quite right. We talk about it when we make a mistake or when we make someone else really angry.

Most of us haven’t learned what to do with guilt since Adam and Eve first experienced it and were driven to invent sewing and hide from their best Friend in the Garden of Eden.

We find guilt confusing because God causes us to feel guilty and also the devil showers guilt on us. Since guilt comes from the Author of Good, we are often confused because it can also come from the captain of evil.

Several circumstances lead us to feel guilty. We may feel guilty for being angry at others. Every one of us gets hurt by someone else at some point in our life. We experience injustice from family or friends or at work or in the community or all of them together. Usually we get angry at those that hurt us. Sometimes we hurt them back through screaming, hitting, or attacking their character. Then we feel guilty for hurting them.

God tells us: “Be . . . angry, and sin not” (Ephesians 4:26). God will never give us guilt for anger when He says it is no sin to be angry. But many of us let anger control our words and actions and motives instead of God. God sends us guilt for our discouraging words, our belittling motives, and our destructive actions to ask us to pray for grace from Him to do differently.

We may feel guilt for how much we depend on others for help. We are tempted to believe that accepting the help of others is wrong or harmful. Or we are tempted to freely accept the kindness of others and take advantage of them. Either course is wrong.

Jesus accepted the gift of five loaves when that gift seemed impossibly small. He accepted the gift of being anointed with spikenard and reproved those that said the gift was too big. Jesus accepted the kindness and the help of anyone. He also gave Himself “unto the least of these” and unto the greatest of these “my brother and [my] sister and [my] mother.”

Some of us have been told that we should feel guilt for enjoying anything. But God takes pleasure and has delight. He even offers to share His pleasure. There is no shame in accepting what God offers. God only gives us guilt if our pleasure is harmful to someone or something.

Sometimes we feel guilty for growing. There is no reason children should be guilty for falling as they learn to walk. God does not shame us for learning and growing as adults and Christians. “The development of the plant is a beautiful figure of Christian growth. As in nature, so in grace; there can be no life without growth. The plant must either grow or die. As its growth is silent and imperceptible, but continuous, so is the development of the Christian life. At every stage of development our life may be perfect; yet if God’s purpose for us is fulfilled, there will be continual advancement.”1

Sometimes we feel guilty for resting. It is as though we cannot think of ceasing work. But God, at the end of creating, did rest on the seventh day from all His works. He designed work and rest as a rhythm with a designated ratio between the two. We ought to feel shame only if we tamper with His ratio and rhythm.

Many folks in Western countries experience times when guilt is more common. Around major holidays people eat more food and eat types of food that are not healthful. They indulged their time and their budget in ways they know they will regret. It has become part of the ritual.

But there is a danger in trivializing guilt. Guilt is a holy gift from a loving God. He gives it to us to lead us to recognize our helplessness and turn to Him. Whenever we ignore or belittle guilt, we are interfering with the voice of God’s Spirit to ourselves. Whenever we permit false guilt to darken our emotions and our souls, we make it harder for God to talk with us.

We have a duty to God to handle guilt with care. This is difficult. We often do not know God well enough to know how He uses guilt to lead us to Him. We often do not know how easily we can be released from guilt. We often do not know that we can always find freedom from guilt at the moment we seek it.

“Many are quieting a troubled conscience with the thought that they can change a course of evil when they choose; that they can trifle with the invitations of mercy, and yet be again and again impressed. They think that after doing despite to the Spirit of grace, after casting their influence on the side of Satan, in a moment of terrible extremity they can change their course. But this is not so easily done. The experience, the education, of a lifetime, has so thoroughly molded the character that few then desire to receive the image of Jesus.”2

“Beware of procrastination. Do not put off the work of forsaking your sins and seeking purity of heart through Jesus. Here is where thousands upon thousands have erred to their eternal loss. . . . There is a terrible danger—a danger not sufficiently understood—in delaying to yield to the pleading voice of God’s Holy Spirit, in choosing to live in sin; for such this delay really is. Sin, however small it may be esteemed, can be indulged in only at the peril of infinite loss. What we do not overcome, will overcome us and work out our destruction.”3

Guilt may be a universal experience. How to handle guilt is not universal knowledge. God has provided us with an understanding and complete solution to all guilt. His Word explains the legitimacy or falsehood of every guilty feeling we ever experience. God Himself will remove all our shame and guilt from us the moment we ask and are willing to be changed. Let us not ignore and waste this precious knowledge and solution that God gives us!