Shame on Who?

Apr 29

Written By Sheryle Cruse

Romans 8:1 declares,

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

Let us examine this, because it would be great if all guilt, condemnation, and shame left us the moment we accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior.

There is no quick fix to this, and it is not instant oatmeal, either.

The truth to this verse,

**“To those who are in Christ, who do not walk according to the flesh.”**

Nothing good comes from our flesh, and this is one of the big reasons many Christians can’t shed this thing called shame.

Let’s look at the differences between these barriers.

Guilt:

First the cause of the guilt.

Suppose you and I act against our conscience and withhold information on our tax returns. It may not catch up with us for a couple of years, but when it does, it is painful.

When we are held accountable for our lie, it becomes public knowledge that we lied and stole from the Government. Your guilt is now well known.

In the light of being caught, the pain of shame enters in.

There is no guilt in trying our best to win a race or compete in business. If we lose the race or do not get the business contract we hoped for, there is no guilt.

Yet, because the door had been opened for shame a long time ago, we start to muddle in our mind's things like,

“If I had just worked harder and prepared better for that race.”

Or

“Had I spent more time dotting the “I’s” and crossing the “T’s,” maybe things would of happened different for me in business.”

Back to the “shoulda- coulda- woulda” syndrome, trying to go back in the past, and fix things.

The past is the past.

It is hard to move on in the quicksand of shame when it hits your heart. You can be drowning and not know it until it is too late. It is a slow fade.

Shame is like a disease that is terminal, but we never die from it.

We only live with it and suffer its consequences.

Like a ball and chain in the spirit.

The problem with this “stinking thinking” is that, Biblically, we can’t turn back the clock.

Now, let us look at shame for what it is exactly.

Some shame is justified; some shame is not.

There are some situations where shame is exactly what we should feel. And there are some situations where we shouldn’t feel shame at all.

Most would say that an outright liar ought to be ashamed.

People would say that the long-distance runner, who did not win the race, should not be ashamed. They gave it their best shot.

Disappointment is healthy, but not shame.

The Bible makes clear that there is a shame we ought to have, and a shame we ought not to have. I am going to call the one, “misplaced shame.”

The other is named, “well- placed shame.”

Misplaced shame is the shame you feel when there is no good reason to feel it. Biblically, this means the thing you feel ashamed of is NOT dishonoring to God; or that it is dishonoring to God, but you did not have a hand in it.

In other words, misplaced shame is shame for something that is good, something that does not dishonor God at all.

You did not have a sinful hand in this shame. This kind of shame is not something we should accept.

As little children, we did not know how to avoid accepting it, when it came from our parents, perhaps.

“It was not your fault, the divorce happened.”

Many young children and teenagers, who are part of a broken family, tend to blame themselves for the divorce. This is not fair to them, to carry guilt and shame for something they did not do. Human nature can be wicked and confusing at times.

“Where are the adults in the room of despair in a broken home?”

Shame is defined as:

Painful, self-conscious emotion arising from the perception of having done something dishonorable, improper, or unworthy.

This often leads to feelings of inadequacy and a desire to hide or withdraw from life itself.

We have heard in and around our ears as a child,

“Shame on you.”

Well, shame hung on the Cross for our sins, and the sins committed against us in this life.

Jesus was not a shame-filled Savior.

He took all shame and bled out for it, along with all the other sinful deeds mankind can create.

Accepting shame, is saying, “I am at fault, even though I did not do it.”

Jesus took our shame, whether it is self-inflicted or not.

He took it all.

Feeling humiliated and embarrassed is a negative emotion rooted in shame. It is the belief that we did something wrong, and we must be flawed. We were blamed for it, so we must own it.

This is a lie.

Lies come from the evil one, and those used by the deceiver of the brethren. Satan. The father of all lies.

That is all he knows how to produce.

The old saying is, “You are what you eat.” Okay.

“What about you are what you hear?”

My mother doted over my older brother, the first born. She was enamored by his matching black hair she had. She loved him, but I believe she loved him too much.

How so?

She would say to me over and over,

“Joseph, why can't you be more like your brother? You could make good grades in school like him, if you would apply yourself and study more.”

Sticks and stones broke every bone in my emotions after this constant comparison to my brother.

I felt like I was hit by a two by four board across my face with that statement.

Have you ever seen a mule hit between his eyes with a board?

Well, try and imagine the look on the poor mule’s face.

I had that look every day of my young life.

Always trying to compete with a smart, good looking, older brother.

What about the other part, the stones?

I am done with the sticks. Well, the brutal words, and the physical abuse I endured, did qualify me as a stone.

I was whipped with the metal end of a flyswatter, drawing blood at times.

It was not a rock.

But like many in the Bible, I was being stoned to death with a device used to kill horse flies.

I guess I shouldn’t have snuck by the screen door in the summer months, trying to cool off.

Might as well have used a large, oversize bug strip with the sticky fly goo, to catch me in midflight. I could have avoided the flyswatter, and just stayed hung out to die, not dry.

Shame.

2 Timothy 1:8 declares,

“Do not be ashamed then of testifying to our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but take your share of suffering for the Gospel in the Power of God.”

What this text means is; that if you feel shame for testifying about Jesus, you have a misplaced shame.

We ought not to feel shame for this.

Christ is honored when we speak well of Him.

He is dishonored by fearful silence.

So, it is not a shameful thing to testify, but a shameful thing not to.

Where does most of our real shame come from?

Experiences that were negative or abusing.

Words do hurt.

So do fists or slaps across the face as a 12-year-old boy.

I speak from experience.

Yes, we battle not with flesh and blood. I did not know Jesus at 12, so I blamed a mother who was abusive towards me.

It is the silence that killed me, not the whippings.

This silent treatment, after my crimes against the house rules, was destroying my spirit.

“Ignore me some more, Mom. Go ahead, and do not talk to me for a week, if that will make you feel more powerful.”

I thought these things back then, but never voiced out loud how I felt.

Condemnation refers to a judicial act of declaring someone guilty as charged, deserving of punishment, and ultimately separation from God.

This often stems from disobedience and sin.

Sin will take us farther than we want to go.

It took me all the way to a penitentiary and kept me longer than I wanted to stay. It certainly cost me more than I really wanted to pay. It cost me my freedom, and so much more.

I was a degenerate. I proved my mother correct!

I didn’t amount to anything, just like she said to me, repeatedly.

She said, “You will never amount to a hill of beans, Joseph Bradley.”

Whenever my middle name was inserted, I knew I was in trouble.

I amounted to what she said. Because of the lies I believed about turning out to be worthless, I did so.

In fact, I remember wanting to be bad, just to make her feel successful in her prophesying.

She said, “You will never become anything, but what you are right now, Joseph. You sicken me to death.”

Well, she died from Cancer when I was 15.

The whippings stopped after that.

I guess I really did sicken her to death.

I will take the blame for that one.

See, words do hurt.

They pierce our hearts to the depths of our young souls.

They hurt when we are elderly.

I heard those hurtful words when I was a foster care manager for the elderly. The son or daughter who visited their Mom or Dad, who were in their late eighties, would verbally abuse them.

Here they are, in their late 50’s, acting like little children who never got their way.

They would say things like,

“Why are you just sitting there in that wheelchair? Get up and exercise. What are you going to do, just sit all day and eventually die Dad?”

Some of the elderly parents would die under my watch at times.

It was not old age that killed them.

They were dead, the moment their children left this so-called visit.

They died but still live on for a short season.

I watched them, after the verbally abusive visit, cower down in their wheelchair, and refuse to eat. Some starved themselves to death. The one man I spoke of, who would not get out of his wheelchair, only lasted two more weeks.

The doctors said, “It was natural causes.”

I beg to differ that diagnosis.

It was the harsh words of criticism and ridicule that killed them.

Slowly, but surely, they died.

Some of the foster care folks, cried when they knew they were going to get a visit from their grown children. The children always called in advance. This abuse must have happened long before I was honored to take care of them.

Guilt. Shame. Condemnation. Take your pick.

We can ignore how we feel today or take it to Jesus in prayer.

We can pretend it does not exist, but it lives.

Charles Dickens said,

“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all their degree, but most of all, beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is ‘Doom,’ unless the writing be erased.”

You and I can erase our doom and gloom of shame. It can be washed away by the Blood of Jesus, in time.

I did not really speak of the word peace.

The fact is, most people who live in shame, have no peace. So, I can’t speak about peace, fully, until we get past the shame barriers.

Some of us have walls. Invisible walls. We can’t see your walls.

You can see every brick.

Each one has a name and a timestamp on them.

They seem to be hard as stone.

They are for now.

But, when Jesus kisses your heart, and holds you tight in the Spirit, another brick leaves you.