Grace Over Guilt: Embracing God's Unconditional Love

We explore the concept of guilt-free faith and how embracing grace can liberate us from self-condemnation. Christ died not just to save us but to empower us, which can only happen when we fully accept grace without exceptions or caveats.

• Grace is unconditional love that covers us regardless of our actions, thoughts, or addictions
• God doesn't keep records of our wrongs—grace obliterates all record-keeping
• Humans naturally keep records of experiences for survival, making grace difficult to comprehend
• When we accept Christ, God no longer sees our broken humanity but Christ's righteousness
• Many religious leaders and others push back against fully embracing grace
• Walking around in guilt doesn't make you a better person
• The enemy tries to diminish grace by convincing us it's conditional
• Clinging to the affirmation that Jesus accepts you just as you are, no matter what

Hang in there, I'm in your corner.

Transcript

Introducing Guilt-Free Faith

Speaker 1 0:00

We have enough guilt, we have enough hardship. This is guilt-free faith. If you're looking for guilt, you're in the wrong spot, because we don't get down like that here. That's not going to make us or shape us into better people. That's not what's going to help us seize upon all the things that Christ died for. I'm going to talk to you about what grace is, why some people call grace a paradoxical concept, why you may feel that way yourself, and then we're going to get into how we can get you out of that paradox and back onto the path to power with Christ.

Grace vs. Human Record-Keeping

Speaker 1 0:39

I want to eradicate the obsession with guilt, consciousness, with self-condemnation, with self-hate, because I don't believe those things lead to God. I don't believe they lead to God's blessings. Grace is one of the keys to unlocking the power of your prayer life, your ability to forgive others, to let bygones be bygones, to get over past slights. It's the power to not see yourself as a wretch but as a precious soul that Christ has saved and taken into his protection and safekeeping. Because I believe that Christ came not only to save us but to empower us on earth as it is in heaven, and I don't see how that can be done without fully accepting grace, without any caveats or exceptions or exemptions like those we often hear from religious leaders. When you are forgiven, when you accept Christ as your Savior, when you unburden your sins to him and he takes those on from you, you are now covered by the unconditional love and grace of God. Regardless of what you do, what you say, how you treat people, what you think, what addictions you have, what laws you break—laws of man, laws of the church, laws of society you're covered. I don't believe that God is rewarding people for shrugging off the forgiveness they've already been given in exchange for continuing to pick up this heavy sack of guilt and self-recrimination.

Pushback Against Grace

Speaker 1 2:24

God doesn't keep records. Grace obliterates all of that record-keeping. And that's so contrary to our human experience, because we all keep records, all of us during our interactions with people. We have feelings, we have memories. Like this isn't a bad thing. This doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't mean that you're somehow lacking in love or forgiveness or anything like that. As a human being the way we're designed, with a nervous system that feels and reacts to things for our own survival we keep a record of what's happening, what the consequences are and how we want to move forward. What the consequences are and how we want to move forward. So, for instance, if you know someone that we have dealings with pulls a gun on us, it's all very well to forgive them, but you'd be a fool to forget that they're dangerous.

Speaker 1 3:15

So it could be hard to accept and eternalize this idea of wow. You're saying like God will just not count like these sins against me anymore, that he'll just actually forgive me, that he's not out to punish me like a parent, even a loving parent, or a manager or a judge. That's something big to take in. That's one of the reasons why we call the gospel the good news. Is that is really great news. Like if you could latch onto that, if you could hold onto that, digest that and kind of keep that message in front of your eyes, you will feel a great deal of liberation from that which I believe is what Christ wants you to feel. Christ died for, among other things you to feel justified and peaceful and forgiven and loved in every single circumstance. Forgiven and loved in every single circumstance, without exception. I believe that Christ's love is so overflowing, that it contains so much empathy and so much understanding that he wants you to immediately and always avail yourself of that love, that kindness, that forgiveness, that generosity. I'm not convinced that walking around in guilt makes you a good person. The only way to be a good person like, according to our faith as Christians, is through the salvation of Christ, because once we are saved by Christ, god no longer sees us, the broken individual. God now sees Christ's righteousness, and this is all biblical. So in case you're wondering, like Jimmy, you just pulled a bunch of stuff out of your hat to make me feel better. No, I'm not doing that, but what I am doing is suggesting that you need to take hold of this. Much more probably than you are.

Speaker 1 5:02

Most people are not fully convinced of the grace message and when they try to activate it, when they try to call upon it, when they try to affirm it, people push them back. It could be a pastor or a priest, or friends or a committee or whatever. It doesn't matter who it is. Generally, you're going to get that pushback. People are going to say hey, man, I don't want you forgiving yourself that freely, I don't want you accepting God, letting you off the hook like that. I want you to suffer a little bit. I want you to feel some guilt, I want you to feel the pain of letting God down. I want you to feel sad, I want you to feel a little bit of fear. And again, that's just the human spirit talking. But you have to remember that's also the enemy trying to tear down the power that grace represents in your life. The more the enemy can convince you that grace is yeah, I mean, god's like pretty forgiving. Convince you that grace is yeah, I mean God's like pretty forgiving. Or yeah, christ, he died for my forgiveness, but it's a little bit shaky.

Affirmation of Unconditional Acceptance

Speaker 1 6:06

I messed up a little bit too much this week, or I committed that indiscretion or that infidelity, or I lied to this person, or Think of all the ways that you've disappointed yourself or disappointed people in your life.

Speaker 1 6:21

Nobody is going to be as good as Jesus at saying I understand, I love you regardless and I'm not counting that against you. That's the affirmation I want to leave you with today. What I'm encouraging you to say is I don't know what all the worldly consequences will be for this. I don't know what God will or won't let me go through as a result of this or what I've done. I don't know what friends I may lose or family that may like me, or what parties I'm going to get disinvited from. Who's going to break up with me, what that parole board's going to say? But you know what? Jesus died for my salvation and he loves me and accepts me just how I am, no matter what. You have to cling to that and the harder people are coming at you, the more dug in you're going to have to get into that affirmation. Hang in there, I'm in your corner.