2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
No discussion of Satan, The Accuser, would be complete without delving into God’s will concerning guilt. Guilt is one of Satan’s favorite tools for making us miserable, and we need to see it for what it is. That is why God leads me to take up this subject with you today. If a person is feeling guilty and laying guilt on others, there are two root reasons for it: 1) unbelief or 2) Satan’s action. Today we will take up unbelief. Let’s look at RO 14: 19-23, which is part of God-driven discussion on not causing one’s brother to fall spiritually. [Let me just say that whenever I refer here to a masculine word, it is for grammatical reasons and not because I believe that the Lord is not including female believers in His commands]. “So then, we must always aim at those things that bring peace and that help strengthen one another. Do not, because of food, destroy what God has done. All foods may be eaten, but it is wrong to eat anything that will cause someone else to fall into sin. The right thing to do is to keep from eating meat, drinking wine, or doing anything else that will make your brother fall. Keep what you believe about this matter, then, between yourself and God. Happy is the person who does not feel guilty when he does something he judges is right! But if he has doubts about what he eats, God condemns him when he eats it, because his action is not based on faith. And anything that is not based on faith is sin.”
The context of these comments was the dispute that had arisen between Gentile and Jewish believers in the early church. The Jews were used to keeping a kosher (kashrut) regime according the dietary laws outlined in Leviticus. The Gentiles were not under such restrictions. The bottom line is that what one eats is not a salvation-based issue, so Paul was saying: allow people to live according to the diet that allows them to be faithful and don’t use their practice of that to be a reason to lay guilt on them and make them sin. The same approach was to be taken with any non-salvation-based issue, such as which day one observes the Sabbath and the like. However, there can be no disagreement on the issue of FAITH + NOTHING = SALVATION. I believe the same approach is meant to be taken today as well. It’s really important that we build faith and not guilt in other people.
Unbelief is a serious matter. The author of Hebrews (who I believe to be Paul) addresses himself to this in HE 3: 18-19. “When God made His solemn promise, ‘They will never enter the land where I would have given them rest’-of whom was He speaking? Of those who rebelled. We see, then, that they were not able to enter the land.” It is important that we understand the consistency of God’s teaching through both the OT and the NT. The Lord punished those Jews who spent their time in the wilderness complaining and demonstrating lack of faith. NU 14: 23-24, “They will never enter the land which I promised to their ancestors. None of those who have rejected Me will ever enter it. but because My servant Caleb has a different attitude and has remained loyal to Me, I will bring him into the land which he explored, and his descendants will possess the land…” More on this is found in NU 14: 29-32. This points forward to the restrictions about entrance into heaven that are going to be placed on those who make a lifestyle out of rejecting God. EPH 5: 5, “You may be sure that on one who is immoral, indecent, or greedy (for greed is a form of idolatry) will ever receive a share in the Kingdom of Christ and of God.” Idolatry is bred out of unbelief, which is why God commands us in so many ways to expunge sin out of our lives no matter what form it takes, so that we can build the faith which leads to eternal life.
Seeds of unbelief that remain in a person act as blockages to sanctification. Satan loves to work on people’s minds to bring about guilt and the unbelief that causes it. We must be alert to this. 1 PET 5: 8-9, “Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the devil, roams around alike a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Be firm in your faith and resist him, because you know that your fellow believers in all the world are going through the same kind of sufferings.” Being alert is not the same as being afraid. When we remain in the word of God daily and have an active prayer life, we give our Abba the opportunity to warn of us Satan’s attacks and are reminded that we have the power to fend them off [EPH 1: 18-20]. When someone is either feeling guilty or trying to make another person feel guilty, we are to look into the reasons behind this and use the discernment the Scriptures give us to deal with it. Remember 2 TIM 3: 16-17, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living, so that the person who serves God may be fully qualified to do every kind of good deed.” We need to assess the condition of our faith and see if guilt in our lives due to unbelief hampers our gaining spiritual maturity.
PRAYER: O Lord, we come to You today as sinners with the need to expunge guilt and sin from our lives. You alone give us the power to do this through the death of Your Son on the cross and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Guilt is Satan’s weapon, one he uses often. When we obey Your commands and listen for Your direction, You will warn us of Satan’s attacks and give us the power to fend them off. While doing this is sometimes inconvenient, painful, or even involves loss, You know that we must have the courage of our faith in You to carry it through. You have told us in RO 5: 3-4, why our battles with the devil must be fought. “We also boast of our troubles, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance bring God’s approval, and His approval creates hope.” Your wisdom knows no bounds, and we must acknowledge this. Your ways are so much higher and wiser than ours, that we must reach, stretching hard, toward Your perspective on the pain and suffering that the adversary causes. While none of this is easy for us, Dearest Abba, it is best, and Your plan for us is the greatest manifestation of love imaginable. You are to be praised for Your faithfulness as the Psalmist in states in PS 107: 43, “Those who are wise will take all this to heart; they will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.” We pledge to examine guilt that is in our lives and guilt that we may be laying on others. It is our promise to see it for what it is and to do what we can to get rid of any unbelief that remains in our lives. We come before You in humility today to confess our sins and to offer You our adoration, worship, trust, obedience, loyalty, diligence, honor, glory, praise, and everlasting thanksgiving for being the wonderful Presence in our lives that You are. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, I am led to continue discussing the kind of guilt that is caused by Satan. We are so blessed to be loved and cared for by our awesome Lord. I am privileged day after day to write prayer requests and cite Scripture for a prayer chain of 131 people. God brought me to that part of my ministry so that I could see the extent and loving nature of the power He exerts in people’s lives and, so I could put my own trials in His perspective. When we trust God and obey Him, He protects, provides, has compassion for, and takes care of us in miraculous ways. He answers our prayers and has put Christ in place as our High Priest in heaven to plead as our Advocate [HE 8: 1-2]. For how much more could we ask? God loves each of you and so do Peter and I.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn