Don’t Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table: Win the Battle of Your Mindናሙና

God’s Invitation Always Stands

After all your prayerful, grace-fueled efforts to turn the Enemy away, what happens if you still find yourself giving him a seat at your table? Is God finished with you? Are you disqualified from having a relationship with God or from serving Him? The simple answer is absolutely not! When you repent, God wipes out your sins. God forgives you and cleanses you. And God ejects the Devil from your table.

Yet after we confess, two outcomes of sin often remain: guilt and shame. Guilt is the position of being accountable for sins and shortcomings. You are responsible for choices you make when those choices fall short of God’s standard. Shame, on the other hand, is the feeling of being defined by your sin and shortcomings. Shame acknowledges guilt, yet it intertwines the sin with your identity. Guilt says, “I have done something wrong.” Shame says, “I am something wrong.” 

The pathway to freedom from both guilt and shame is the story of the grace of God. Many of us walk around carrying the weight of guilt and shame. It doesn’t need to be this way. We can have victory. Grace destroys shame. Through the work of Jesus on the cross, the grace of God cancels your spiritual guilt and sets you free. You can step into that work of grace by the act of repentance. Repentance is not a negative thing. It opens a doorway through which God comes to you and does for you what none of us can do for ourselves. 

God took our guilt and placed it instead on His innocent and righteous and willing Son. Then God took the innocence and righteousness of His Son and made it available to us. To everyone who repents, all your guilt was taken by Jesus. You are made brand new. If you sin as a Christian, confess your sin, and His forgiveness clears the air in your fellowship with God. Because of the cross, you are already forgiven.  

Grace not only cancels guilt and shame but also redefines you and me from “failure” to “family.” Jesus wants to define you by His scars. Because of His sacrifice, you are a son or daughter of God. You are a beneficiary of the lavish love of God. Run toward Jesus, and refuse the Enemy a seat at your table. 

Even when we are faithless, God is still faithful. If you’ve gone back to your old way of life, of sin, and you’re hiding from God, His invitation of a restored relationship still stands. Jesus restores us by removing our guilt and shame and reminding us of our identity as a friend and family member of God Almighty. Do you love Him? If your answer is yes, Jesus will proceed with your restoration. The Enemy wants you to look away from the Lord, but if you look to the Lord, your face reflects the light and love of Christ, and you are never covered with shame. Jesus says you are forgiven. Do you agree with Him?

Respond

What guilt do you need to repent of? How does this repentance bring you freedom?

How does Jesus see you? How does this affect the way you see yourself?

How can the freedom of forgiveness reflect the love of Christ to others struggling with guilt and shame?