Guilty as Charged!

Have you ever had trouble trying to silence a guilty conscience?

If you’re a human Being then the answer is, “yes”! Many of us have done things that have seriously bothered us for years afterwards. And the guilt is always there in the back of our minds,
and it can drive us nuts. People try all sorts of ways to deal with the terrible feelings of guilt
and the low self-esteem that comes after they’ve messed up.

You know how I know this?
I’m not only a spokesman but I’ve also been using this product for years. You look in the dictionary under low self-esteem and it shows my picture. My middle name used to be guilt.

When I was in the Navy, I had to take a life. Beirut, 1982 was a very difficult time. My boat was tasked to go into Lebanon and extract American Government employees. We had to go through some waterways that were surrounded by mountains.

As we were coming around a bend in the channel, some Guerillas opened fire on our boats. I was on a 50 caliber machine gun at the bow of the boat and was ordered to return fire. 5 minutes later it was over. It was like a nightmare to me, I just fired away not knowing if I hit anyone or not. I saw quite a few people go down.

To this day, I wonder.

I have gone over this in my life a few hundred times. At first I denied I it. I’d say to me, “That didn’t really happen, I must have dreamed it”. Some people deny it by saying, “Well it wasn’t really wrong,
and lots of other people do the same kind of things?” So I’m not really guilty.

Then I ignored it, just enclosed it within my memory.

Then I tried to bury my guilt by drinking, eating drugging away my pain. Or at least I tried.

Then I tried to compensate for it. I tried to right what I thought was wrong through works.

Guilt is a powerful motivator.

This may surprise you but guilt is good!

Why? I’m a diabetic and I have lost the feeling to some of my extremities. In other words, I don’t feel pain in these areas. If I cut myself in these areas and don’t realize it because of the dead nerves, it can get infected and gangrenous. I could lose that limb because of not feeling the pain. We need that warning system to tell us when something is wrong.

Guilt is exactly the same kind of warning system that pain is. Guilt tells us that something is wrong,
not physically, but emotionally and spiritually. Without guilt, you would have no warning sign
that you’re messing up your life and your relationships, and that you’re going the wrong direction.

But just like pain, the idea is not to just ignore it, but to remove what’s causing it, so that the guilt will go away. So the first step is giving it to God and renewing the spirit. That happens through something called repentance. Repentance means a change of heart; a change of mind and a change of direction.

Some of you may feel like, even though you’ve admitted your sin to God and repented, God hasn’t forgiven certain sins – because they’re just too big – and so you still feel guilty. That’s false guilt. That doesn’t come from God. True guilt comes from God, false guilt comes from Satan. There aren’t any sins too big for God to forgive, but Satan may tell you different.
In Psalm 51, David speaks of his repentance. If you remember, David was a murderer and committed adultery to name a few. But David knows the result of repentance; He knows the result of letting God Renew his Spirit. He’s looking forward to the joy.

Psalm 51:7-15
I’m going to have a pure heart,
washed whiter than snow,
I’m going to hear joy and gladness again,
my tongue will sing of Gods righteousness,
my mouth will declare his praise.

David knows it’s going to be great when he repents, and silences the guilt, and the joy of his salvation returns.

I have blown it in the past but I have gotten past the feelings of that guilt.

We must all rejoice in our salvation…TODAY!