Yesterday we began talking about the seven things that can block the flow of the Holy Spirit in your life. Number one was condemnation. We cannot allow the things we are ashamed of in the past to rule our hearts and minds today. If you did not read that article, you can find it here...http://www.praiseag.blogspot.com/2015/10/7-things-that-will-block-flow-of-spirit.html
Today we are going to be talking about the second thing that will block the flow of the Holy Spirit in our lives, Jesus said, "He who believes in me, out of his inner most being will flow rivers of living water." When we allow things to pollute our inner being, the river of God cannot flow in our lives and we feel alienated from God and his presence. Guilt will block the flow of the Spirit of God in your life and will make it harder for you to experience the presence of God.
We are told in the Book of Hebrews to draw near to God with confidence, but also that our guilty conscience can hinder us from drawing near with sureness of faith, and we know that without faith it is impossible to please God. You see it is easy to KNOW that God CAN help you, but our lack of confidence is often in ourselves, not in God. We don't think that we are worthy, and we fear that we have done so much wrong that we need to be punished. These types of guilt are so weighty and this will cause you to doubt that God's love can reach you. Jesus came to deliver us from this kind of guilt, God does not intend for you to carry the guilt of your sins any longer.
Hebrews 16:17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
(God has forgotten your past mistakes)
18 Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.
(You don't have to punish yourself, or think that God needs to punish you, he paid the price once and for all)
19 ¶ Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
(when we are free from guilt and shame, we have the boldness to fellowship with the Spirit of God
20 By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
(Jesus paid ALL the price, your guilt was ripped from you the moment He took your punishment on the cross, God no longer calls you guilty, so why let your feelings and emotions and thoughts punish you?)
21 And having an high priest over the house of God;
(Jesus is your high priest, you come near to God through him, not of your own efforts or accomplishments, the ONLY WORK you can do is to believe in JESUS)
22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
(When you are free of guilt and shame you can draw near to God with confidence, but if you hold your guilt to yourself, you will feel a block of condemnation between you and the Father.) You must forgive yourself, and accept God's blessing upon your life in SPITE of your past. there is someone today you are tying to prove yourself worthy to God, to make up for your past. You cannot make up for your past, you must allow the blood of Jesus to atone for it. Believe in his blood to cleanse you, you must believe his goodness, out weighs your sins. You must believe his forgiveness is final.
23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
Sometimes when we have tried to forgive ourselves, and we cannot help but to waver and feel condemned it is because we have unconfessed sin in our lives right now. Most of the time other people can see this sin in our lives but we have excused it and self justified our behavior. If you pardon your own sin, and excuse your own sins than God cannot justify you or pardon you. Only as we confess we have sinned and turned from us are we justified and pardoned before God. A lot of people are walking around in self-justification, and this kind of human righteousness will block the presence of God from your life. Many times people have sin in their lives that they are living in everyday and they don't realize it as sin. They see it in the Bible, and have heard people preach against it, but they have rejected those words and made excuses. God PARDONS our sins when we repent of them. He does not excuse our sins and overlook it because of our circumstances. The only way to be healed of this is to begin to fast and pray and ask God to open your eyes to the sins that you have hidden from yourself. Most often where you have had conflict with others and they have tried to 'tell you' that you are living in sin is the thing that you are holding to yourself and making excuses for.
24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
You need other Christians in your life. What does it mean to provoke. None of us like to be provoked...yet when we are around other Christians we are held to a certain amount of accountability that helps us walk in the light instead of the darkness. The very reason that many will not go to church is because they don't want to be challenged, provoked, convicted to grow in God, because this is often an uncomfortable and painful process.
25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
We see that Paul has linked coming into the presence of God and getting over your past through the forgiveness of God with not forsaking assembling together with other Christians. When we recoil from the Body of Christ, we look ourselves up in a tomb, how can we love our brother if we refuse to walk with our brother.
When we blame ourselves and live in guilt and shame, we alienate ourselves from God. Jesus made provision and that is the only way to fix it, you cannot 'make up' for your past.
What do you blame yourself for? What are you ashamed of? Whatever it is your must release it and let it go as the blood of Jesus has cleansed you of your sins. Have you asked God to forgive you? Are you doing your best to do better? Sometimes the greatest guilt is when we know to do better, but we are trapped in a pattern of not doing as good as we know to do.
God knew that when we came to Him we would have to find a way to deal with our guilt. Guilt can drive you to hate yourself. Condemnation is the end result of guilt. Condemnation fills us full of shame, and brings utter disappointment in ourselves. When we have condemned ourselves we have judge our own behavior and found it lacking. But no matter how many times we have failed, we must love ourselves just like we are, warts and all. We must learn to accept ourselves just like we are, because Christ died for us.
You must get to the place where you can say, "It's OK to be me, because Jesus loved me enough to die for me, and he cares for me enough to mold me into an even better creation. And He has the love and patience to help me become a better me through the blood of the Lamb."
I feel like I am talking to some people today that you have a lot of guilt in your life. You can't seem to get over the mistakes you have made, and others are holding these mistakes over your life too. The hardest and bravest thing you will ever do is to forgive yourself. One of the toughest things in life is giving yourself grace. Sometimes the guilt of what we have done in the past goes so deep it is rooted in the most intimate and hurtful place in our hearts. I have talked with many people and counselled them that they must love and forgive themselves. That they will never be able to embrace the love and forgiveness of God until they release themselves from the mistakes of their past and their own short comings. I have had a few people say to me, "I can't do that. I can't let it go. I've done too much wrong, I've hurt too many people to just let it go and free myself of the guilt of it." But the truth is Jesus died for your sins. Not just the pretty sins, or the ones that didn't hurt others, HE DIED FOR ALL YOUR SINS. All your guilt. All your shame. All your past MISTAKES. Not just a few. You cannot carry the weight of those sins and those mistakes any longer. They will cloud up your inner man and keep the Spirit of God from flowing freely through your life.
Are you ready to forgive yourself today? Jesus has already forgiven you, and he took your shame, guilt and mistakes upon himself, so that you could be free. Don't let what Jesus did for you be treated as nothing. He wanted to let you go free, so now you must free yourself, by forgiving yourself and moving on and learning from your mistakes.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for sending Jesus, to take my mistakes, my guilt, my shame upon himself upon that tree where he died. And he knowingly took my punishment and took all my guilt and shame and nailed it to the cross, crucifying it there, it is gone, it is finished, I am free, I pardon myself because of the blood of Jesus, I AM FREE today, IN Jesus name. amen.
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