Trusting in His Goodness
August 08, 2006There is a big difference between guilt and shame. Guilt is the pain we feel when we make a mistake. Shame is the pain we feel when we think we are the mistake. When shame hits us, we feel like we are uniquely bad. God does not use shame to motivate us. Shame comes when we put hope in something other than Jesus. It is great to hope for things, to hope for a new job, a new house, friendship, and the like. There is nothing wrong with hoping for things. The problem comes when we hope in those things. When we look to someone or something other than God to feel our worth or value. When we put our foundational hope in something other than God, it will shame us. We must place our hope in God. The basis of our hope is the goodness of God and not our performance. The devil wants you to believe that if you live well, good things are going to happen to you and if you live bad, bad things are going to happen to you. That is not true. We will all have failures, immaturity and slips ups in our life. Therefore we do not want the basis of our hope to be in our performance. We want to go much higher and have our hope in the goodness of God. “You are good” says the Psalm. His goodness leads Him to act in our lives. We must place our confidence in His goodness. Gods goodness is His righteous generosity. He is free to gives us anything He wants for we are His blood bought children. Generosity means we get more than we need and more than we deserve. John 10:10. His goodness replaces our shame.
Dear Mr Jack Deere
This is great stuff, I listened to you speak at the Day Spring Church conference Sydney (Ps. David Crabtree). I have a close friend that needs this stuff, I'll print it off and give it to he. We also have friends in the ministry that could use this in their own lives. I've also have lossed three brothers through drugs, murder etc... I love you.
Gary Hetherington :: August 21, 2006 12:47 AM