Transformative Guilt: A Path to True Beauty

The strange paradox present on every page of the gospels and which we can verify any day is that it is not guilt which is the obstacle to grace as moralism supposes. On the contrary, it is the repression of guilt, self-justification, genuine self-righteousness, and smugness. Those are the real obstacles to grace. [03:27]

The great need that we have and what I want to focus on in these few moments today is for God to bring the gift of guilt into our lives so that we can deal with our biggest problem, which is the sin, the brokenness, the wrongness, the deception, the anger, the lust, the pride, the greed, the apathy that separates me from God and keeps me from being the person that I want to become. [05:00]

What makes guilt a gift in our lives is when it shifts from being moralism or legalism that is externally imposed to when I have a personal encounter with the living God, and then when I see something inside me that needs to change, I'm not in despair. I feel pain over it, but my prayer becomes, oh God, would you help me become a different kind of person. [05:41]

Life is simpler for those who don't believe in divine inspiration or who do not trouble about it. Simpler also for those who believe in a naive way and have no fear of being mistaken. But it's not a question of having an easy life but one as near as possible to the truth. [06:18]

It is precisely by such groping and through many errors returning to our tracks and renewed communing that we come to understand God better. When we comprehend this biblical idea of God and his guidance in our life, our view of guilt is profoundly altered. This is so amazing. It is freed from all legalism and becomes more subtle, vibrant, and creative. [07:19]

The whole of guilt is comprised in the fact of losing the guidance of God, shutting one's eyes to it, or refusing it. It is a much more severe and exacting sense of guilt but not in the least oppressive. We are seized by a new passion, that of discerning signs from God by which he would preserve us from false we might commit even in good faith and unconsciously. [08:22]

A genuine fault is a hidden fault and requires an external revealer. This is always true. It is the way that wrongdoing works. If I was very clear and deeply believed that this was a wrong thing, I would not do it. The human constitution, our makeup, our emotions, and conscience would not allow it. [08:57]

I pray that you would give this day to me and to the one with whom I pray right now the gift of guilt, but not oppressive, despair-inducing, paralyzing guilt. Guilt that is subtle, penetrating, clear. Guilt that is vibrant. Guilt that is creative. Guilt that leads me to the man on the cross, who was most beautiful in your eyes when he was most ugly in the eyes of the world. [09:09]

God would you bring to me the guilt that only grace can provide, and then lead to me to the grace that comes through the road of God-given guilt. Walk with us all through this day, God. Deliver us from ego, pride, self, sin, death, and hell. Let us walk as close to you as we are able. [09:38]

Paul Tournier in his book "Guilt and Grace" talks about how all inferiority is experienced as guilt, and it's a strange thing about us, but we can feel guilty or ashamed of not being attractive enough, or we can want to be more attractive and then feel guilty about that, or we can envy somebody else who is so beautiful and then feel guilty about that. [02:08]

If I am guilty of something and I feel it, that's conviction. That's the gift of God in my life. If I'm not really guilty but I feel like I'm guilty, that's being neurotic. If I am not guilty and not feeling it, that's a sense of peace. That's what we want to move towards. [02:32]

In some ways, the most dangerous condition to be is when I'm actually in a state where I'm guilty of something, there is wrongness inside me, but I'm not aware of it, so then I'm not motivated to change. That guilt is to our spirit something like what pain is to our body. [03:10]