Navigating Pathways of the Heart: Guilt

In response to the requests after Sunday’s sermon on The Gospel Deals With Guilt, I am happy to post a section that I referenced from Bill Senyard’s workbook The Gospel App.  Click Here for an Amazon link to that book.

Guilt is what you normally feel when you do something wrong.  You did not do right and so feel guilt.  Guilt is a power that ignites largely unconscious reactions to fix it.

To feel right again you might .  .  .  .

• Defend yourself
• Blameshift to someone else (“Well, that wouldn’t have happened if only you .  .  . ?).
• Make excuses (“That wouldn’t have happened if only the situation had been different.”).
• Deflect attention to someone else’s “worse” sin (“But you have done way worse than me.”).
• Fight back – accuse the accuser.
• Quickly apologize before it gets even worse.
• Minimize the wrong (“I am sorry that you felt that way, or that you were hurt, not my intention.”).
• Focus attention on your right (“But you forgot the 100 times I did it right, seems a bit skewed.”).
• Become the martyr (“I am the worst of all sinners.”).
• Make resolutions and commitments to never do it again.

The Gospel App by Bill Senyard.  p. 38

The point is to observe patterns of behavior and recognize the state of heart from which they come.  Do you find yourself regularly “accusing your accuser”?  Perhaps that reaction or behavior is rooted in a deep-seated sense of guilt.  To change the behavior, the Gospel of God’s Grace must set the heart free from the guilt that is the root of the problem.