Believers in Christ talk about guilt and forgiveness a great deal. I doubt anyone talks about it more. I remember being very annoyed by this as an unbeliever. But, Now I am the one talking about it because I realize how vital it is to be forgiven.
We just don't know how vital it is until we are forgiven.
Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin." - Romans 4:7-8 ESV
Unresolved guilt is a barely conscious thing yet it poisons a person deep into their being and paints a perception of God on an unconscious level that isn't a true picture because unless we see God and let His image transform us we will make Him in our image. The guilty person can only see God as a judge because they judge themselves continually a level they can not see. Their soul is whispering unkind words to itself all the time and it is so painful that it speaks to mostly deaf ears.
The crazy thing about being a forgiven person who forgives others is that you become an object of hatred by guilty people. People in long term bondage can easily begin to hate those that are free. They represent all that is forever barred from them and out of reach. It is naive to think that guilty people just need to be loved. They feel unlovable not because people have not loved them enough. They feel unlovable because they have disqualified themselves from love and need a better reason to accept love than they have yet heard.
The cross is a better reason.
For the disqualified the cross is the only better reason.
Through great effort and patience you might trick a person into loving themselves for a while by believing in them and convincing them that you don't hate them and that you see worth in them. That is what mainstream society teaches us. Education, enlightenment and care will cure every ill. People just need a better more educated self image then once you make them productive people with big spoonfuls of investment they will be just fine. But there is only one problem...
Guilt.
It just won't go away and eventually it will raise it's ugly head out of the depths of the unseen parts of their soul.
You can love a person and that will go a long long way but the only way a person can love themselves and let God love them is if they know... I mean truly know deep down... that they are totally and utterly forgiven.
Jesus dying on a cross in our place must be the answer. It is the only answer. It was the only answer for God and it is the only answer that the unseen parts of our soul will truly accept because the Spirit of God is needed to minister to those places we can not see.
"For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.' Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe." - 1 Corinthians 1:17-21 ESV
So don't be surprised when those who begin to trust you exhibit anger or even hatred towards you. Until we comprehend the true extent of God's love by embracing what the cross represents we envy and resent those who are free and see love as pity but if the cross becomes a person's 'better reason' we have won a brother and can fellowship because of grace and grace alone.
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