God’s Good Purpose for Your Guilt
“I refuse to let you lay a guilt trip on me,” he said. He wasn’t upset, just insistent. “I grew up Catholic, and everyone was always trying to guilt you for everything. It was torture.”
It was Saturday morning, and I was out with my evangelism team from church, passing out tracts and inviting people to our services. I was attempting to share the Gospel with this sixty-something Hispanic gentleman. But his guard had shot up the minute I brought up God’s moral law—because of his negative experience as a youth, he admitted to me.
Sadly, he’s not alone in his thinking. Our relativistic, no-fault society loves to tell us that guilt is harmful and should be avoided at all costs. Even some Christians have bought into this notion.
God’s Word is of a different opinion. Guilt can be GOOD, the Bible tells us.
If 1) we feel guilty about the right things, and 2) this leads us to confess our wrongdoing before God, receive His forgiveness, and change our ways, then the guilt is healthy.
(In the remainder of this article, I will sometimes use the term “conviction” when speaking of good guilt.)
Let’s go carefully over each of these two points.
1. If we feel guilty about the RIGHT things, the guilt is good.
To know what we should feel guilty about—namely sinning in thought, word, or deed—we must be familiar with God’s Word. As the Creator of all life, it’s God’s prerogative to decide what is sin and what is not, and He lays it all out for us in the Bible. What’s more, God often uses our conscience to speak to us when we sin (Romans 2:15).
If we experience guilt over going against God’s Word or our conscience, that’s healthy. On the other hand, it’s not healthy to feel guilty about petty mistakes or mishaps, things that are out of our control, or about failing to live up to people’s (often unrealistic) expectations of us (including our own).
Some examples of things I should feel convicted about:
Speaking disrespectfully to my husband.
Neglecting to read my Bible.
Not keeping my word to pray for a friend.
Lashing out at my kids.
Not visiting my disabled, elderly mother.
Lying on a job application.
Eating donuts when I need to lose weight.
Not giving to God’s work from my income.
Some examples of things I shouldn’t feel guilty about:
Arriving late at work because I got a flat on the way.
Not having read every single book on my bookshelf.
Not volunteering for a new church project because I already have enough on my plate.
Resting on my day off instead of taking on my to-do list.
Accidentally forgetting a relative’s birthday.
Not buying my teenager the new, expensive iPhone she desperately wants when her current phone is just fine.
Having gained a pound or two over the holidays.
2. If our guilt produces godly sorrow that drives us to repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10), the guilt is good.
The purpose of God’s moral law is to show us that we’re lawbreakers, create conviction in our souls, and drive us to the Cross for the forgiveness of sin. “The Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24).
If our guilt doesn’t produce contrition and cause us to alter our course, it’s worthless. This type of guilt may, in fact, be of the enemy. Let’s not forget that Satan’s agenda is to mimic, mock, block, and distort God’s good purposes in any way that he can.
Often, he hammers away at our minds and plays on our emotions to try to make us feel guilty about something that isn’t our fault.
As for our actual sins, which God WANTS us to feel convicted about, the enemy will try to keep us from owning them, confessing them, and repenting of them.
If we do take our sins before the Lord, he will try to convince us that we’re still not forgiven.
Like I said, it’s critical we know the Bible. Knowing what God has said in His written Word is the only way to determine if the voice speaking to our hearts is that of the devil beating up on us or of the Holy Spirit rightfully and lovingly convicting us.
Guilt, if the wrong kind, or if not resolved God’s way, can become an enormous burden that hinders us in our service to God.
In fact, guilt feelings can pile up to the point where they completely crush us, causing us to become so hopeless that we give up on life itself. This, of course, is perfectly in line with Satan’s schemes.
It’s likely that the nice man I was chatting with that morning had never paused to consider the difference between good and bad guilt.
Lots of people haven’t.
If so, it’s not surprising that I wasn’t getting through to him.
As you and I continue our efforts to share the Gospel one-on-one, maybe we can help shed some light on this critical distinction.
It’s not that we want to “lay a guilt trip on” people because we take some twisted pleasure in making them feel bad about themselves.
What we’re attempting to do—and we do it because we care—is to use God’s law to produce godly conviction in the hearts of men and women.
And that’s because the conviction needs to be there if the person is to reach out to Jesus for the pardon they need for their sins. Amen?
L.B.
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