You can put that down.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard someone say, “ that’s just my cross to bear”. Of course, it originates from the story of Jesus, but it refers to an unavoidable or unshakable personal burden. 

All of us have things that we have to carry. No one is without burdens in their life. Even though burdens are inevitable, guilt and shame do not have to be one of those burdens we carry.

In the series where we are considering how to care for our soul, we need to understand that caring for our soul means laying down guilt and shame. 

Maybe you’re wondering, “what is our guilt and shame?” or, “ what’s the difference between them?”.  Guilt is the feeling that you have done something bad. Shame is the belief that you are bad or unredeemable because of what you’ve done.  

If nothing else, I want you to be encouraged that you can live free from the weight of guilt and shame. This is soul care, when we confess our sin and live in the forgiveness that Jesus offers. 

You don’t have to carry your guilt and shame. You can put them down. 

First John 1:9 reads, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

The story of scripture is consistent. When we confess our sin, we find healing and forgiveness. 

The lie the enemy wants you to believe is that in order to be forgiven you need to fix your mistakes or stop making them altogether. 

So we bottle up our sin. We cover our failures. We follow the way of Adam and Eve and try to hide our sin from God and others. 

The invitation from God is that we would find healing and help from our grief ad shame. When we surrender then he takes them. 

The message of God’s word is clear, confessing our sins relieves us from their weight. 

The enemy wants us to believe the like that our sin is ours to clean up. The truth is living perfectly isn’t possible. 
We don’t need to bottle up or manage the sin in our lives. We need to confess it to God, and confess to those hurt by it. 

Just because we are saved doesn’t mean we will be perfect. When we inevitably make mistakes and fall short, let us be quick to put down the emotional and spiritual weight of our sin by confessing it to God. 

We don’t stop at confession. Because our confession leads to God’s forgiveness. 

Guilt is not always bad. If you do something that hurts others, you should feel guiltily until that wrong is confessed to God. Shame, however, is not the work of God in our lives, but the work of our enemy. 

Satan wants us to live in shame! Even after something has come and gone and we have sought forgiveness, Satan wants us to be trapped in our shame. 

Here is the good news: Jesus has defeated the power of shame. 

Check out Hebrews 12:1-2: “Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him,  he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” 

Did you catch that? He put shame back in its place. You and I are not our mistakes, or failures. In Jesus, we are forgiven and made new! 

We have been set free and we care for our souls by laying down that weight and living in the freedom Jesus gives.