The Truth About Guilt

In the midst of conflict we must be willing to take full responsibility for our percentage of blame.

Do you ever try to overcome your sense of guilt by explaining to others the reason why you made certain mistakes? In the 2^nd of a 19-article series, Dr. Debbi Dunlap discusses the natural inclination of the human heart toward deceitfulness. He warns readers of the danger of self-justification and explains that we are unable to overcome wrong behavior in our own feeble strength.

We learn in the Bible that God’s ways are not man’s ways. God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Apart from God’s instructive Word our natural minds are inclined to believe deceptions as truths. In Scripture we find a repeated emphasis on the importance of a clear conscience. The writer of 2 Peter 1:5 exhorts Christians to add to their faith a clear conscience.

Maintaining a conscience that is void of offense toward God and our fellow man is the second most important thing in our lives after our faith in Jesus Christ.

We cannot have a clear conscience when there is unresolved guilt in our lives.

Christians who disobey God’s command to maintain a clear conscience fall prey to Satan’s many deceptions. It is impossible for a Christian who has unresolved guilt in his or her life to possess a clear conscience. In an effort to understand what the Bible teaches concerning guilt, we will consider several commonly believed deceptions and their corresponding truths.

We must be willing to take full responsibility for our percentage of the blame in a conflict.

When we commit an offense against another person we naturally tend to conclude that we were only partially to blame and the person that we offended was mostly at fault. We often refuse to go to the offended party to ask for forgiveness. We generally think that if we wait long enough the other person will come to his or her senses and be the first one to seek reconciliation.

When we have a guilty conscience we often tell ourselves that we will exert the sheer force of our wills to forsake our wrong actions. The truth is that we will never be able to discontinue our wrong behavior in our own feeble strength. God tells us to humble ourselves before Him and ask forgiveness for the offenses we have committed. Only then will we be eligible to receive grace from the Lord to cease from our wrongdoing.

We should not try to justify our motives when we make a mistake.

Christians sometimes try to overcome their sense of guilt by explaining to other people the reason why they made certain mistakes. They hope to make them understand that although their actions were questionable, their motives were really good.

God’s Word reveals to us the fact that our hearts are naturally inclined toward deceitfulness and we are prone to wicked behavior. When we acknowledge the truth of this principle we align ourselves with God’s thinking and we eliminate the need for self-justification.

The only way to alleviate our guilt is to humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness.

No alternative method exists for the Christian who has committed an offense against another person. He or she must go quickly, humble himself or herself and ask for forgiveness. At the very moment that a sinner repents, God faithfully begins to pour out His marvelous grace to grant healing and restoration.

“I’m Sorry” Doesn’t Count

Unresolved past offenses do not fade as time passes. Instead they get bigger and more serious.

Do we truly understand how to request forgiveness biblically? Have we secretly hoped that if we postpone clearing our conscience with someone, the problem will diminish with time? When we offend someone, the words “I’m sorry,” or “I apologize,” are not acceptable phrases. In the 3^rd segment of a 19-article series, Dr. Debbi Dunlap discusses the scriptural approach to righting wrongs.

When we neglect God’s command to keep a clear conscience we cannot function properly within the Body of Christ. If we refuse to humble ourselves and seek forgiveness when we offend someone, we exert a vast amount of energy in an attempt to maintain our emotional equilibrium. We work hard to minimize our guilt, justify our actions and defend our motives.

Our “pre-conversion” offenses still count and we must make them right.

One commonly held misconception about guilt is the assumption that we do not need to seek forgiveness for the offenses that we committed while we were still in an unsaved state. The mistaken belief is that since God forgave us for all of our sins when we came to Christ in repentance and faith, our pre-conversion offenses “don’t count.”

We sometimes find that God opens doors of opportunity to win lost people to Jesus Christ when we care enough to clear our conscience with them. As we take the initiative to return to them with a contrite heart, and make a sincere effort to right some long ago, but not forgotten wrong, we often witness miraculous results—people want to know this Savior who has led us to them in humility and authentic loving concern.

Problems do not fade as time passes. They get bigger and more serious.

Although God’s Word instructs us to deal quickly with guilt resolution, we often choose to procrastinate. We hold out false hope that by postponing the need to clear our consciences, the problem will diminish and we will feel less and less guilty as time passes. The reverse is actually true.

The problem gets worse with the passing of time. The offended party has the opportunity to grow increasingly bitter and the offense seems to loom progressively larger in his or her eyes.

Procrastination weakens our consciences because we must ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit in order to procrastinate. God expects immediate obedience to His commands. When we refuse to obey Him promptly, God allows our hearts to harden toward Him and toward the convicting power of His Word.

Saying “I’m sorry” is not the same as asking for forgiveness.

Most Christians do not understand the biblical guidelines for requesting forgiveness. One particularly prevalent deception is the belief that the words “I’m sorry,” or “I apologize” are acceptable phrases when an offender asks someone else for forgiveness. These are inadequate approaches. When we offend someone, we must first demonstrate genuine repentance and humility by acknowledging our sins.

The final deception that Christians widely embrace is the belief that God requires nothing further of us after we have asked someone for forgiveness. The notion that we have done our jobs and have no other duties to fulfill is a false one. God wants us to use each offense that we commit as an opportunity for self-examination. We should search out any hidden offenses that we may have committed against God and against our fellow man.

God assures us in His Word that when our ways please Him He will make even our enemies to be at peace with us. We must be willing to follow through completely on the scriptural directives for gaining a clear conscience.

A Clear Conscience Gives Us Peace of Mind

As we seek to gain a clear conscience we must be truly repentant, not merely sorry we got caught.

Being “sorry” is not the same thing as being truly repentant before God. In the 4th article of a 19-part series, Dr. Dunlap describes the biblical steps we must take if we desire to gain a clear conscience before God and our fellow man. He emphasizes the importance of carefully wording what we will say in advance and urges us to confess our pride and willfulness to God.

Christians who have obeyed God’s command to obtain a clear conscience, can face everyone they have offended with confidence that they have taken the proper measures to resolve their guilt in a biblical manner.

First, we should list all the people that we have had conflict with.

The first step toward gaining a clear conscience is to list all the people with whom we have had conflicts. We should write a brief description of the circumstances that are involved in each situation. Next, we must acknowledge the fact that some of the people who are part of these conflicts may have sinned against us. We should deliberately forgive them before God for any of the specific offenses that come to our minds. It is important to remember that these offenses are part of God’s overall purpose for our lives.

We must decide on the exact wording that we will use when we ask for forgiveness.

The third step is to clearly determine the wording that we will use in each situation as we request forgiveness from each person. This is very important because an apology that is not well thought out often serves to make matters worse. For each situation, we should decide ahead of time whether a personal visit or a phone call would be the wiser approach.

Now we are ready to humble ourselves in genuine repentance before God. This must occur before we are ready to ask forgiveness from the people we have offended. In James 4:9,10, James offers us an encouraging promise,

Be afflicted and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.

Are we genuinely repentant or are we merely sorry that we got caught?

If we are sorry that we lost our money or our possessions, or if we are grieving because our reputation has been damaged, then we are demonstrating nothing more than pride and selfishness. None of these responses constitute biblical repentance.

We should ask God to forgive us if we have demonstrated a proud spirit.

If we desire to experience godly repentance we must first confess our pride. We should ask the Lord to give us an accurate picture of the condition of our hearts. Second, we must confess the fact that we have resisted the grace God gave us to obey His will. The writer of 2 Samuel 12 illustrates the third confession we should make. Here we read that God punished David because,

By his deed, he gave occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme God’s name.

We ought to confess to God that our offensive deeds have caused God’s name to be blasphemed. Finally, we confess the fact that we have been trying to take charge of our lives and that we have been following our own lusts and desires. The Lord will be faithful to grant us godly sorrow and grief over the seriousness of our sins.

How to Ask for Forgiveness

Learn about certain questions that we must consider before we ask someone for forgiveness.

Has anyone ever refused your request for forgiveness? Many times we do not receive forgiveness from someone because we fail to understand how deeply we have hurt him or her. In the 5^th installment of a 19-article series, Dr. Dunlap reminds us of Psalm 51:17, “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” He stresses the importance of communicating sincere humility and genuine repentance to the people we have offended.

When we commit an offense against someone we must consider certain questions before we go to him or her to ask for forgiveness. First, we must think of how the offense occurred and then we should seek to relive the hurt through the eyes of the person that we offended. We should ask God for the ability to sense the feelings that he or she experienced. We must also determine whether or not we need to make any restitution as a consequence of the offense.

Is there any behavior that we must change before we ask for forgiveness?

Before we approach the hurting person we should be certain that we have identified the issues that offended him or her the most. When we repent for lesser offenses while failing to address the greater ones, we multiply the offense. It is important to make sure that the wording that we have planned for our apologies implies no blame whatsoever to the other person. We should resist the temptation to justify our offenses.

If we plan to defend our motives we are wasting our time. We must determine that we will not try to “preach” to the offended party. Additionally, we should not plan any indirect attempt to use our apologies to get him or her to change.

We must plan exactly what we will say before we ask for forgiveness.

It is important to choose the right wording for our apologies thoughtfully and carefully. When the prodigal son in Luke 15 decided to return home to ask for his father’s forgiveness, he carefully worked out his apology in advance. When he met his father he repeated, nearly word for word, what he had planned to say.

Many people ask for forgiveness and do not receive it because they fail to understand how deeply they have hurt someone. We ought to make an effort to put ourselves in the other person’s place and relive the offense. First, we think of all the harm, the hurt and the disappointment that our offenses caused him or her. Next, we let the offenses break our hearts.

We should be prepared for the possibility that he or she might not forgive us.

After we have humbled ourselves before the other person we should be prepared to respond in the right way even if he or she does not grant us the forgiveness that we seek. We ought to plan to sincerely thank him or her if he or she does forgive us. We must think of a gracious way to respond if he or she says something unkind, such as, “I hoped you would finally come to your senses and realize how wrong you have been.”

We need to decide whether or not we will ask him or her to reveal to us any further blind spots that he or she is aware of in our lives. However, we must be willing to receive these comments graciously if we believe that God has led us to ask for them.

As soon as we decide to go to someone to acknowledge the wrong that we have committed and ask for forgiveness, our pride will rear its head. We must not heed such thoughts as,

You weren’t so bad after all. The other person involved was just as guilty as you were.

Instead, we should follow through on our commitments and pray that as we go, we will communicate sincere humility and genuine repentance.

A Clear Conscience: Worth Fighting For!

A Christian must take several practical steps in order to obtain and maintain a clear conscience.

Are there certain areas of persistent weakness and failure in your daily walk with God? In the 6^th of 19 articles on guilt resolution, Dr. Debbi Dunlap encourages readers to consider developing a practical plan for consistent righteousness. He suggests that Christians flee temptation, avoid all appearance of evil, put on the armor of God and become accountable to other Christians for their thoughts, words and actions.

Once we decide to establish the goal of maintaining a clear conscience before God and man, we must be prepared to fight an ongoing battle with the enemies of self-justification, rationalization and pride. We should also understand that Satan would delight in luring us into complacency with his recycled, age-old question, “Has God really said that we must maintain a completely clear conscience?”

There are several practical steps that we should take in order to obtain and maintain a conscience that is void of offense toward God and our fellow man. First, we should identify any areas of recurring sin in our lives.

This series of articles includes several checklists, which are provided as practical evaluation tools to help readers specifically identify these areas of sin.

We must ask God to forgive us for our offenses against Him. We should also begin to memorize Scripture.

The second step is to express genuine repentance to God for any persistent sins that we have allowed to enter into our lives. The writer of James 4:8-10 instructs us,

Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail…Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

Next, we ought to utilize the effective spiritual weapon of scripture memorization.

We should commit to memory the key scriptures that are related to our particular sin problems.

As we consider the areas of persistent weakness and failure in our daily walk with God, we need to develop a practical plan for consistent righteousness. We should flee temptation and avoid all appearance of evil. We must ask the Lord to keep us from ever causing someone else to stumble in his or her Christian walk because of our wrong behavior. We should put on the full armor of God described in Ephesians 6:13-17, and firmly stand our ground against evil.

God wants us to trust Him one day at a time. Worrying is a sin.

When we think about the recurring sins in our lives we begin to work through biblical solutions to avoid repeatedly falling into the same ditch. God has given us His Word in order to equip us for every good work.

Every Christian needs to be accountable to other Christians.

We can reinforce our wills by a bond of accountability. This is one of the most powerful ways for a Christian to conquer temptation. We read in James 5:16,

Confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

We should seek out a trustworthy Christian and ask if we may make ourselves accountable to him or her for a certain length of time. We ask him or her to commit to pray for us regularly. Then we mutually decide upon a time when we may briefly check in with him or her on a daily basis.

Biblical repentance requires us not only to turn away from sin, but also to walk in the opposite direction of that sin habit. We must remember that the “spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” If we tell ourselves that we will do something we have only ourselves to answer to. But if we tell someone else what we are going to do, we double our accountability and we increase our chances to succeed in turning away from besetting sins.

Getting Off the Emotional Roller Coaster

Fearing God is vastly different from fearing man. If we do not fear God we cannot obtain wisdom.

Do you sometimes feel that you are sentenced to ride a roller coaster of your fluctuating and unreliable emotions? In the 7^th of 19 articles, Dr. Debbi Dunlap explores the meaning of fearing God biblically. He reminds us that the reverent fear of God and trust in the Lord are the keys to keeping a steadfast heart that “has no fear of bad news.” We do not cower before God in dread. Rather, we boldly approach His throne in Jesus’ name.

Fears of all sorts seem to constantly assault people today. They fear the unknown. They fear that they will lose their jobs. They fear that someone may break into their houses and rob them. They fear driving on the freeway or they may fear an angry spouse.

The fear of God is vastly different from the fear of man.

God’s Word, however, identifies a different kind of fear. It is called the fear of God and it is the scriptural prerequisite for wisdom. The fear of God might also be defined as awe or reverence.

People who fear God have a profound sense of His holiness and righteousness. When Christians fear the Lord they have a compelling desire to please Him with obedient hearts and upright lifestyles. Because they fear God they desire to avoid His displeasure.

A Christian who does not fear God cannot obtain wisdom.

God teaches us in His Word that many benefits occur in the life of a Christian who learns to live in the fear of God. We cannot be saved apart from an acknowledgement of His perfect holiness. The writer of Psalms 85:9 assures us, “Surely His salvation is near those who fear Him.” We read in Psalms 111:10 that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. “All who follow His precepts have good understanding.”

If we fear God and shun evil, God promises in Proverbs 3:7,8, to bring health to our bodies. The writer of Proverbs 10:27 informs us that the fear of the Lord adds length to our lives.

God extends His promises to those who fear Him, to three generations.

When we fear God He extends His wonderful promises to our grandchildren. We read in Psalms 103:13,

From everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him and His righteousness is with their children’s children.

In many other Psalms we find that God stores up His goodness to bestow on those children who fear Him and He has compassion on them.

The Christian who fears God lacks nothing.

In Scripture, God further assures us of His protection and provision when we fear Him. We learn in Psalms 33 and 34 that the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him and He encamps His angels around them. God commands us in Psalms 34:9,

Fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing.

Deuteronomy 10:12 is a clear statement of God’s requirement that His children fear Him,

What does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul?

When we learn to fear God biblically we do not cower before Him in dread. Instead we come before His throne with a heart that reverently trembles in the presence of His majestic holiness. In Jesus’ name alone, we boldly approach Almighty God with unspeakable gratitude for His unending lovingkindness and His amazing grace.

Rationalizing Guilt Gets Us Nowhere!

God promises to forget our sins but other people don’t. Offenses never “go away.”

Are you convinced that you do not need to seek forgiveness from others for past offenses because Jesus’ blood has covered all your sins? In the 8^th article of a 19-part series, Dr. Dunlap exposes this deception. He explains that when God saves us He blots out our transgressions and no longer remembers them against us. God does not, however, take care of the damage and bitterness that we caused when we offended others. That is our job.

When we make a commitment to maintain a clear conscience before God and our fellow man we soon find ourselves considering a long list of excuses with which to explain away our guilt.

God often gives us witnessing opportunities when we ask someone for forgiveness.

The rationalization for guilt that seems to surface most frequently is the belief that Christians do not need to ask forgiveness of others for the offenses they committed before they were saved. “After all,” the reasoning goes, “God knew that I was lost and behaving like a heathen when all that happened. He couldn’t possibly expect me to go back now and try to make it right.”

Becoming a Christian, however, should increase a person’s motivation to clear his or her conscience. The fact that we have been saved is the best possible explanation for why we would ask someone for his or her forgiveness.

God wants to receive the credit when we attempt to mend broken relationships.

We glorify God every time we make an earnest effort to seek forgiveness for a past offense. As we attempt to explain the fact that the Holy Spirit has given us new discernment into right and wrong behavior, we might use a phrase such as,

I have become a Christian and God has helped me to realize how wrong I was to do what I did.

Although God forgets our transgressions, people remember them.

Another rationalization that Christians often believe is that it is unnecessary to seek forgiveness for past offenses because Jesus’ blood has covered all our sins, past, present, and future. When Jesus Christ saves us His blood cleanses us from every sin. God removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west. While it is true that God blots out our transgressions and no longer remembers them against us, He does not take care of the damage and bitterness that we caused when we offended others.

Paul instructs us in Philippians 3:13,14 to “forget those things which are behind.” He is, however, clearly referring not to his former offenses but to his former achievements, which are listed a few verses earlier in that same chapter,

I myself might have confidence even in the flesh…circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews…a Pharisee…as to the righteousness, which is in the Law, found blameless.

We should do everything that is scripturally possible to live peacefully with other people.

Thus, each offense that we formerly committed becomes a “handle of guilt on our spiritual backs.” These “handles” give the Enemy of our faith the opportunity to pull us back each time we try to move forward in our Christian walk.

We give Satan ground to use these offenses to accuse us because we have disobeyed God’s directives for dealing with them biblically. Christians must be diligent to obey the command of Romans 12:18, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.”

Common Guilt Rationalizations

We should not bring God an offering unless we first reconcile with an offended brother or sister.

At times we tend to rationalize our guilt. We think that because an offense happened long ago we don’t need to drudge it up again by asking the person we offended to forgive us. In the 9^th of 19 articles on guilt resolution, Dr. Debbi Dunlap discusses the answer to this and several more commonly held misconceptions regarding reconciliation among Christians.

As Christians, we often conclude that because we committed an offense long ago we do not need to go back and ask forgiveness from the person we offended. We attempt to circumvent God’s mandate for a clear conscience by reasoning that the offended party has, by now, surely forgotten the offense. The truth is, the fact that we remember the offense vividly enough to deem it “insignificant and forgotten” is sufficient evidence that we need to take care of it biblically.

We should not bring God an offering unless we are willing first to be reconciled to our brother or sister.

God instructs us in Matthew 5:23,

Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering.

This scripture points to the fact that God uses our ability to remember as a means to direct us as we seek to gain a clear conscience.

The barriers between people remain indefinitely until the offender asks for forgiveness.

Even though the relationship may have improved over time, the offense still resides in the offended person’s mind and the next time an offense occurs he or she may react against the unrepentant offender with the combined wrath of both present and past offenses. When we fail to deal biblically with seemingly small offenses they become barriers between people. These barriers eventually destroy relationships. When we confess and repent of past offenses, however, we take significant steps toward removing these walls.

What should we do if the person that we formerly offended has died? One possibility is to go to the nearest relative of the deceased person, repent for the offense that we committed and make any required restitution to him or her. When we offend someone the effects of the offense are rarely confined to one person alone.

There are situations, however, in which the only person that we offended is no longer alive. No relatives are aware of the offense. Many Christians who have faced this problem have gained complete freedom from guilt by confessing their offense to God in the presence of a mature Christian, and then appropriating the forgiveness that God promises us in 1 John 1:9. The writer of James 5:16 advises us, “Confess your faults to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”

We must ask for forgiveness every time we commit an offense no matter