By Greg Laurie
23 for all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through
the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Romans 3:23-24
When Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, wanted to play a practical
joke on twelve of his friends, he sent a note to each of them that simply read,
"Flee at once. All is discovered." Within twenty-four hours, all
twelve friends had left the country. That's what you call a guilty conscience
If
you ask me, I think we could use a little more guilt in our society. Guilt does
serve a purpose. What good can possibly come from guilt? The same good that comes
from that warning system in our bodies called pain. If you step on a piece of
glass, your body sends a warning signal: "Stop! Don't go any
further!" In the same way, God has installed a warning system called guilt
into our souls, and we experience it when we do something wrong. Just as pain
tells us there is a physical problem that must be dealt with or the body will
suffer, guilt tells us something is wrong spiritually and needs to be
confronted and cleansed.
So you see, guilt isn't necessarily a bad thing. The guilt feeling we experience is the symptom of the real problem, which is sin. All of the psychological counseling in the world can't relieve a person of his or her guilt. We can pretend it is not there or try to find someone else to blame for our problems. But the only real and effective way to remove our guilt is to get to the root of the problem, which is sin.
So you see, guilt isn't necessarily a bad thing. The guilt feeling we experience is the symptom of the real problem, which is sin. All of the psychological counseling in the world can't relieve a person of his or her guilt. We can pretend it is not there or try to find someone else to blame for our problems. But the only real and effective way to remove our guilt is to get to the root of the problem, which is sin.
