Flying with Thursday's Word shame by Brenda Smith

Thursday's Word


WORD: SHAME

DEFINED: The painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, done by oneself or another.
SCRIPTURE: John 8:36 “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” 1 John 1:8.

In other words: if we as Christians say we never fall down – we’re not kidding anybody… least of all God.  So, what do we do when we DO sin???  “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9.

Felipe Santana

One of the reasons people don’t confess their sins to God is that they believe that once God “finds out” what they’ve done, God wouldn’t forgive them. But of course… that’s foolish – there isn’t anything God doesn’t see or hear. You can’t HIDE your sin from God.  All we lose, by not confessing our sins to Him, is the freedom He can give us from the shackles of shame and guilt that come from those sins.

Max Lucado tells the story about the boy who was shooting rocks with a slingshot. He could never hit his target. One day when he was in his Grandma’s backyard he spied her pet duck. On impulse he took aim and let it fly. The stone hit, and the duck was dead. The boy panicked and hid the bird in the woodpile, only to look up and see his sister watching. After lunch that day, Grandma told Sally to help with the dishes. Sally responded, “Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Didn’t you Johnny?” And she whispered to him, “Remember the duck!”

So, Johnny did the dishes. What choice did he have? For the next several weeks he was at the sink often. Sometimes for his duty, sometimes for his sin. “Remember the duck,” Sally would whisper when he objected. After a while  he grew so weary of the chore, he decided that any punishment would be better than washing more dishes, so he confessed to killing the duck.

"I know, Johnny," his Grandma said, giving him a hug. "I was standing at the window and saw the whole thing. Because I love you, I forgave you. I wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave out of you.”

That is what shame does to us. It makes a slave out of us because we cannot get past the shame of it. We think we constantly have to do all the good in the world to make ourselves feel better. The truth is, we confess it to Jesus and ask Him to forgive us – and be set FREE!!