Get off the V-line train

We hate the whole idea of guilt trips. We hate being on them. But we let people put us on them. We hate being on them but we use it to manipulate others into getting what we want.  If you add a whiny and annoying voice you have a better chance of getting your way.  Kids are brilliant at this. Just go to any grocery and watch how kids operate. They are complete masters at making parents feel guilty for not getting that one thing that will save their life. Parents are brilliant at this with their kids. Parents use guilt as a manipulation tool to get their kids to do what they want.

Why do we do this? Because it works!

The V-line train company in Australia put together one of the more fun commercials about parents using guilt to get their kids to come home and visit. They actually called the ticket, “The Guilt Trip”. Watch this 1:55 minute clip.

In the last blog entry we learned that “Guilt is an emotional response to the perception that we have broken a rule or fallen short of a standard.” (Becca Johnson) Guilt is an emotional response and guilt is based on perception. These are two very important things to understand because it means that guilt can be based on emotion rather than logic, and on perception rather than reality. It means you can BE guilty, and not FEEL guilty or we can FEEL guilty, and not be guilty.

God has given each of us  a conscience. Our conscience is supposed to work like our body’s pain-sensing system. When we touch a hot burner on the stove we say, “ouch”. Our conscience is knit together in us in our mother’s womb. The Holy Spirit uses it to bring some stuff to our attention that needs to be addressed. This is the way good guilt works. It warns us that something is wrong in our life and we need to pay attention to that area in our life. But our conscience gets messed up by our dysfunctional family of origin, a legalistic or liberal  background, immersion in a culture that puts us on all the wrong guilt trips, life experiences that were of no fault of your own but we choose to blame ourselves for, and the ultimate “conscience –messer – upper” – The evil one!

The evil one wants to convince us that God’s love is not unconditional, his mercy is not real, his compassion is for those who deserve it, and hope is for those he has chosen to love. His ultimate goal is not to get us to sin. We do a pretty good without his influence because we are born with a sin nature. His goal is to destroy our relationship with God by convincing us we cannot be forgiven of our sin, our mistakes, and our mess ups. We cannot be forgiven PERIOD! Bad guilt is the Enemy’s prime time tool in destroying a person’s relationship with God. He wants you to believe the lie if you feel guilty but aren’t ……….. your still guilty. This kind of guilt, which we are calling BAD guilt, can destroy you.

Two important notes to understand is God never uses guilt as a weapon against us. He also never uses guilt as manipulation tool to get you to do something. He also never accuses. He only brings conviction. If you ever hear an accusatory voice in your head – it is the voice of the evil one. He tells us we are not good enough. He tells us we cannot be loved. He tells us we cannot change.

God has a whole different perspective of you. Watch this 3 minute video before going on.

A lot of people identify with the first message that was scrolling.  People have a tendency to mentally stay in the negative and concentrate on the negative. We can identify our negative traits a lot quicker than we can identify the good things that God has created in us.

But God’s truth changes that negative message. God’s truth (like in the video) turns that message around.

Read on to see how this works.

Paul writes in Romans 9:1 (NEB)

“I am speaking the truth as a Christian, and my own conscience, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, assures me it is no lie.”

What Paul is saying is, my conscience, because it is truly led and informed by the Holy Spirit, has reached a point where it can be relied upon. To break it down a little further, his conscience is so saturated with God thoughts that it can be relied upon to tell him the truth. His family of origin no longer messed up his mind. His religious background that led him to believe all the wrong things about God was transformed. His culture in regards to what it means to do the right thing was totally changed. Paul was able to drown out the lies of the evil one. When his conscience spoke – it spoke truth!

This is exactly what God wants for each one of us.

How do you get to this point that Paul got to? How do you get to the point where you can drown out the accusing voice of the evil one? How do you get to the point of getting your conscience so saturated with God thoughts that you can rely upon it to tell you the truth every time?

A: The Scriptures (The Bible)

Look at what Paul writes about it in 2 Timothy 3:16 (NLT):

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

The scriptures point out what we should be guilty about:

Sexual immorality, greed, gossiping, thinking evil thoughts, not loving our neighbor, not loving ourselves, pride,  adultery, fornication, selfishness, not loving God first, theft, lying, slander, murder, lustful pleasure spiritual pride, materialism, stealing, worshiping idols, not honoring your parents, parents abusing their kids, coveting, not keeping the Sabbath holy, drunkeness , misusing the name of God

There are more – but these cover a majority of them. These are the ones Paul’s mentions.

The scriptures are a healthy guide to help you understand what you should or shouldn’t feel guilty about. If the scriptures do not say you should feel guilty, you shouldn’t feel guilty. If the scriptures say you should feel guilty – let it be your wake up call. 

The Scriptures  give truth and guidance, standards and values, for virtually every area of life:
• Our jobs
• Our marriages
• Our sexuality
• Our family life
• Our relationships
• Our finances
• Our emotions

I won’t bore you by listing a bunch of scriptures and reading them. Get on your computer, or your smartphone, or your tablet and search for scriptures about job, scriptures about marriage, scripture about relationship, etc…. You name it – God’s got a perspective on everything.

This is the first step in helping us understand if what we are feeling is bad guilt or good guilt. If you are feeling guilty about something and the Bible is silent about it and it does not say it’s a sin but other people are trying to tell you it’s a sin –that’s called legalism. You don’t need to feel guilty about the things the scriptures don’t clearly say are sin.

On the flip side if you are sitting there not feeling guilty at all and you look it up in the Scriptures and it speaks to it as sin …. Then wake up and be mature enough to call it what it is and confess it.

• If you are having sex with someone that is not your husband or wife – scripture calls that sin – confess it.
• If you are sleeping with someone else’s spouse – scriptures call that sin – confess it.
• If you are gossiping about someone – scripture calls that sin – confess it.
• If you are not loving your neighbor – scriptures call that sin – confess it.
• If you are a glutton – scriptures call that sin – confess it.
• If you covet so much you go into irresponsible debt or steal something – it is called sin – confess it.
• If you don’t love God more than you love your spouse, your kids, your computer, your tablet, or your smartphone then that it is called sin – confess it.

I could go on …..

Hopefully we understand that the scriptures were not written just to point out where we disappoint God. None of us are God’s greatest disappointment. Romans 2:23 reminds us that we all fall short of the glory of God. God is pointing out what we need to feel guilty about. These are things we need to wake up to. These are areas of our life we should pay attention to. This is kind of guilt is a gift from God.

The Scriptures help us “realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects when we are wrong teaches us to do what is right.”

Along with the scriptures there are two questions we need to ask to do a self-diagnosis:

1. Why are you feeling guilty?
2. Is what you did wrong or sinful according to God’s word?

The scriptures are essential in helping us understand what we need to be feeling guilty about. The scriptures are the only reliable guide that can drown out the voice of the evil one, our culture, our family of origin, our personal tragedies, or our troubled background. When we saturate our mind with what God thoughts, our conscience, because it is truly led and informed by the Holy Spirit, has reached a point where it can be relied upon.

The answers to the two questions above might not always be clear cut, but these two questions will help you begin the process of discerning between good guilt and bad guilt. When you ask these questions and you realize that it is bad guilt, quit beating yourself up. Straighten out your conscience with the truth and let go of the worry and anxiety.

If it is good guilt, then its time to do some business with God. Not for the purpose of more guilt or condemnation, but for the purpose of receiving forgiveness and moving on past the guilt.
Let the truth set you free.