Grace or Guilt

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1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Romans 6:1-3

Have you ever just done something stupid? If you’re like me you do stupid things on a regular. When I say on a regular I mean if I started typing all the dumb things I’ve done I’d never finish writing the list. Sometimes the dumb things I do are pretty small and insignificant. Other times though the dumb things I do are pretty big. The kind of big that hurts others and your relationships with them. Whether intentionally or not, there are times that I’ve hurt others. Those are the situations that are the hardest to overcome, those are the ones that produce guilt and lots of it. It’s hard to give yourself grace in those situations. If you follow my blog you may recall I wrote about not giving yourself too much grace. You can read it here if you’d like. In a nutshell it says giving yourself grace is good, but not to the point of using grace as an excuse not to do our best. I’m not changing anything that I wrote in my original blog, Agree or not, I believe it was 100% on point, but as with everything in life, there must be balance.

Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law,
which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left,
that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. Joshua 1:7

Have you ever had an ear infection and you easily got off balance? You go too far one way or the other and fall or almost fall. Too far one way or another is never a good option. If you go too far one way you justify your mistakes and then your mistakes can easily grow and become sin and you’re still justifying. I think we can all agree that is not the way we want to live, at least it shouldn’t be. We can go too far the other way as well, where we belittle ourselves because we aren’t perfect. God may give us scripture or speak to our heart and we are doing our best to fix what He has told us to fix but it isn’t happening overnight. If you’re honestly doing your best to change, but you aren’t perfect in it yet, don’t beat yourself down. God’s grace is still great! I fully believe He knows we’re slightly thick skulled somedays, but He also knows our hearts. If you are trying your best then just let Him keep working and you keep striving. Notice I keep saying if you are trying your best? You can’t just say you’re doing your best, you actually have to be striving for perfection.

You can let guilt hold you back from living the live God intended you to live. Sometimes you make mistakes that hurt people or you feel as though you aren’t good enough. Regardless of the reason you feel guilt, it isn’t helping anything. Like an ear infection, guilt has you leaning too far one way about to fall over. Extending too much grace to yourself can get you leaning too far the other direction, still about to fall. How about we let go of guilt, human grace, or whatever we’re clinging to and we simply cling to God and His Word instead?