Anchorage: The Storm of Shame | Part 8 of 8Sample

It's a Shame

It's a feeling of humiliation. It's a focus on our wrongdoings. It's a trudging through the mud.

The sting of sin has left the world in a state of hopelessness where we can’t imagine a future because of our past. These memories of our past become major barriers to receiving the radical honor of the gospel, as it's easy to remember why we don’t deserve it.

But, my friends, here are the facts: God’s love and grace have relieved us from the shame of falling short. The unmerited favor and honor enable us to let go of our old ways and work towards a future with Him. When you experience such outlandish undeserved honor, it makes you want to treat others the same. We love because He loves. We honor because He honors us. It is only in Him and through Him that we can truly get away from our past and seek His will.

We perhaps need to remind ourselves that not only did Jesus die on the cross for our sins, but He also bore our shame on that cross. Understanding this brings about a major breakthrough in our walk with God because the enemy's main strategy is to weaponize shame. We wallow and push ourselves down to a point where it becomes hard for us to even come to God and repent or receive His grace. But the message of the cross is quite clear. Sin has absolutely no power over us, and neither does shame.

What Jesus did for us on that cross liberates us so that we no longer wallow but partake of His mercy and grace. It is through this hope we find that He turns our biggest mess into a message and our biggest shames into a story of unmerited honor.

Reflection

Are you in a place where you still wallow in the shame of your failures? Seek the Lord to help you understand in a great way how He removes not only sin but the shame that comes with it from east to west.