Breaking Free From the Power of ShameSample

DAY 3: Breaking Shame's Power

There is a part that Christ plays, and there is a part you play in breaking shame’s power.  Get a shovel, and let's start digging. We’ll dig deep and search in your soul for the very things you have been covering and hiding. The things that you have done that no one knows about. We are going to bring them all out to the light. You have to be willing to face it in order to defeat it. The enemy wins his battle in the dark, and we win ours in the light. 

Forgiveness and grace await you on the other side of confession. I know you’re probably tired of carrying this, but rest is on the other side of confession. And that’s the first step, confession.

Acknowledgement will help you live freely in the present and offer hope for the future.  The past is something the enemy will use consistently and aggressively to keep you spiritually paralyzed.  He knows that if he can keep you living in shame, then you won't move into a life of freedom.  He will remind you of the things you did wrong or the wrong things that were done to you.  He wants you to feel like you are not worthy.  He wants you to think that forgiveness is impossible for you. 

Let's take a look at the life of David.  He was a man after God's own heart, yet he knew shame very well.  

David knew what it meant to sin and attempt to cover it up.  It began when he saw Bathsheba and took her for the night.  She was another man's wife, but he misused his authority to take advantage of her, committed adultery, and impregnated her. 

A one-night stand now turned into a lifetime of turmoil.  Would he no longer be King if people found out?  If he remained King, would people disrespect him?  Would he lose the image he carefully protected? 

So, what does he do?  Instead of confessing his sin and repenting, he comes up with a horrible plan.  Sin and shame go hand in hand, and so do dumb and dumber.  That is what sin does.  It makes us irrational!  David wasn't logical.  He wasn't thinking straight.  His decision-making skills were now distorted.  So he went to extreme measures.  He took Bathsheba’s husband and had him killed, hoping that the deep dark secret would never get out. 

For shame to lose its power, you have to acknowledge the very things that’s producing it.  If shame is the fruit of my sin, then I have to get to the root, so it stops producing fruit.  This is incredibly hard but necessary to move forward.  I may not like it, but I have to acknowledge the past and accept that it happened. 

In Psalm 32, this is precisely what David does when he finally begins his path to freedom.  He didn't point the finger at others for his failures.  Instead, he owns it!  David committed adultery and then murder to cover it up.  This led to emotional, physical, and spiritual starvation.  He became weak and feeble in every area of his life because he was exhausted from hiding.  As he looked back at his sin, he acknowledged that the misery he was experiencing was connected to the sin he was covering.  He finally gave up and uncovered it.