Mark 2:5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Sin and the weightiness of guilt can make us feel unworthy. If guilt is not addressed then it turns into shame. Guilt is “I did something bad” but shame concludes “I am bad”. Shame will wrap us in unworthiness and disgrace. Shame will tell us that we are unworthy of any blessing. Shame will echo that God can never entrust us with the first best in anything as we have miserably let Him down. If all of this is true, then the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to die for our sins will be futile. There is no misdeed or crime that the life-giving blood of Jesus cannot wipe clean. There is no transgression, iniquity or curse that cannot be washed away by the precious divine detergent ‘the blood of Jesus’.
Jesus saw the faith of the four friends of the paralytic and said to him “Son, your sins are forgiven. It was the faith of the four who carried him and made a hole in the roof to reach Jesus that brought the healing. But why did Jesus forgive the sins of the paralytic? Guilt can drain away our faith as it makes us feel useless and inadequate. It was believed in the Jewish custom that all sickness was due to sin. On another occasion, His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life (John 9:2-3). The paralytic would have been healed physically but would have remained disabled spiritually if Jesus had not addressed the guilt issue. The man had to hear it from Jesus that all his willful, arrogant and ignorant sins were forgiven. Jesus healed him holistically. Sin shrouds us with the black garment of guilt.
Shake free from guilt:
1. Worthless: Guilt binds us with the shackles of shame and stigma. Shame hammers over and over that we are unworthy to be blessed. Guilt tells us that we have missed the mark so God can never use us again. The blood of Jesus makes our worthlessness into usefulness. The blood has the power to transform our miserable mess into a powerful message.
2. Hopeless: Guilt sucks away the hope of redemption. It leaves us with a sense that we are mere useless weaklings and helpless worms. Guilt will lie to us that God is mad at us. The devil uses ‘guilt’ as a disqualifier to make us hopeless.
3. Sinless: Forgiveness through the blood of Jesus is not a parole, but a pardon. It is not a conditional release, but an absolution. The Lord promises to us, a repentant sinner, who not only regrets but pledges not to return back to the loathsome ways, that He will never hold our sins against us.
The blood removes the stain of guilt, shame and stigma.
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
Prayer: Precious Jesus, thank you for rolling the burden of guilt away from me when you kicked open the grave and resurrected on the third day. Thank you for your precious blood. Amen
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