Overcoming guilt day one

Guilt is a heavy task master. Guilt can be brought on by the sins that we commit. When we pray we know that we have received forgiveness. Often guilt still has us bound up by things in our past. Guilt can rule over your past reminding you of all the things you did wrong yesterday. Guilt can rule over your present reminding you of all the things you didn't do right today. Guilt can rule over your future predicting with all certainty that you will definitely get it wrong tomorrow. Guilt can completely rule over your entire life adding it's negative color to everything that you do.

Guilt is a task master that we yield to because we believe that we have gotten things wrong. We expect guilt to punish us with it's ugly reminders. Guilt takes up just as much space as you allow it to take in your life. Guilt will often try to make us feel guilty when we in fact did nothing wrong and did not commit a sin. For instance, you tell someone that you will meet them at a set time. Later, your boss tells you that you must do an errand for him at that time. You know your job will be in jeopardy if you don't comply. You call your friend to let them know that you can't make it because your boss requires your help, but, they seem very disappointed. After you get off the phone here is where guilt tries to make it's way into your life. Guilt will try to plague you, not because you sinned, but simply because you let your friend down. It is true that those people who try to be people pleasers are usually the ones that carry the most guilt. In situations such as the one above we often tell people, "Hey I will make it up to you somehow, I promise." Why do we feel the need to make it up? Guilt. We don't want to disappoint someone else and often we will feel guilt every time we think about that person until we do enough for them and thereby made up for our failure.

Guilt rules your mind and your emotions. When we commit a sin, or after we do something we think is guilt worthy (such as disappoint someone else) our mind begins to remind us of how bad we have been in this life. Some people will actually have thoughts that are destructive. When we have thoughts such as, "I am such a jerk." "I hate myself." "I am such a terrible person, I'll never amount to anything." we are ensuring our own unhappiness and self defeat.
Why would we say things to ourselves about ourselves that we would never allow someone else to say about us. Those things we say about ourselves, such as, "I'm so sick of myself, I hate my life." are self defeating. We would never let someone else say those things about us. If someone else looked at you and said, "I am so sick of you." "I hate you, you never do anything right." We would be so mad at them. We would just be outrageously insulted if someone else made those comments about us. Yet, we say those things about ourselves when guilt prompts us to do so. We have effectively become our own worse enemy.

The first step to overcoming guilt is to stop self defeating thoughts. I know that there are people that have actually done things that are wrong and guilt is now their companion in life. However, no matter what we have done, no matter how good or bad we have been, guilt no longer has any power if you have received the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Once you have been forgiven by God, guilt no longer has any power over your life. Once forgiveness has been applied to your life, the only power guilt has over you is the power that you freely give to it. The power of guilt is all in your mind.

We have been taught that if don't live up to some one's expectations that we should 'feel bad' about ourselves. This idea is completely wrong. When Jesus came to the earth, the Jews had a completely different idea of what the Messiah should be like. Jesus absolutely did not live up to the expectations that the Jews had for their messiah and they got really mad about it. We know that Jesus was sinless and perfect, yet, he failed to live up to the expectations of the Jewish leaders again and again. So, no, we should not feel bad when we let someone down, or don't live up to their expectations, if that makes you a bad person, then that mean that Jesus was a bad person, and we know that he was the Son of God. We have been taught that if we sin we should pay for it the rest of our lives. After all what goes around comes around and karma always sticks. Yet, we know that this is also wrong. Jesus came that we might find forgiveness for our sins and he took our PUNISHMENT for our sins upon himself on the cross. If he took our punishment, that means guilt has no right to punish us any further.

If you have placed your life in the hands of God and found his forgiveness then why not release your guilt. Your punishment has already been served. Your punishment is complete in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Notice how many times you self defeat by having horrible negative thoughts about yourself. Make a habit today that every time you have a self defeating thought that you replace it with two positive thoughts about yourself.