Today, I will define guilt, give examples on how your guilt came about, how to deal with guilty feelings, and put them behind you, and lastly discuss what the Bible has to say about the origin of sin and how Jesus came to reconcile us back to God.
Guilt is defined as an action that you commit to hurt or harm someone physically or emotionally and you feel sorry about what you have done.
Sometimes, guilt may be feelings that have nothing to do with an action that you committed. In this case, guilt may have originated from your childhood when your parents told you how disappointed they were because of your behavior, to get you to change your behavior. Some people carry over this pattern to their adulthood and become people pleasers doing well when they get the approval of people and crushed when that approval is not apparent. You may feel guilty for being unable to give gifts to your family for Christmas because you are out of work or you had a business closure on account of Covid 19. You continue to assist your cousin Mary, financially, but now, she wants you to open your home to her and you know deep down that this is going too far, but you feel guilty about it. You ask yourself: “How do I overcome these guilty feelings?”
If the person who you have hurt is alive, you can tell the person that you are sorry for hurting them physically or emotionally. If that is not possible or the person is deceased, you can go to God in prayer, confess, and repent of your wrongdoings, renounce the action, put the past behind you and move forward. If you belong to a house of worship, try to speak with a Pastor or Rabbi. Otherwise, speak with a Mentor, close friend or Therapist and put the past behind you.
People in Biblical times spoke to God when they felt guilty. In Psalm 51:14, king David called out to God:”Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O my God, The God of my salvation. And my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness. King David put Uriah, Batsheba’s husband, at the forefront of a battle knowing that he would be killed and David could marry Batsheba. In Ezra 9:6, And I said: “O my God. I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens. Israelites were acknowledging the guilt of their sins against God, repenting, and turning away from sin.
Sin, including guilt, entered humanity since Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden of Eden. From then, we became guilty of sin and needed to be exonerated from sin. God sent His Son Jesus who died on the cross to pay the price for our sin. There is nothing that you and I can do to make this right, for it was all done by grace so that all of us can have the same opportunity. When you believe by faith, that Jesus died and rose for your justification, and you confess and repent of your wrong doing, and make Jesus Christ your Lord, you obtain the gift of salvation and eternal life. You are not condemned or guilty, you have been made right by faith. You have peace with God (Rom. 5:1). God has put all your sins on Jesus ( 2 Co 5:21) so you can become the righteousness of God and restored to your rightful place as a child of God.
For this reason, it is important to put your past behind you and move forward. If you do not, you would not you fail to see your self-worth because you focus only on your failures. You blame yourselves for the action or actions that you committed against others. Understand that all of us have failures in life. Some people experience business failures, but they either try another business or become successful by implementing other methods. In your life-journey, you may be thinking of doing great things and you cannot see a positive future ahead because you are stuck in your past. Put your guilty feelings behind you and move forward.
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