Daily Nuggets of Grace Part 2 Unashamed!Uzorak

What Causes You Shame?

Why are you reading this? What’s happening inside your heart that leads to action? What motivates you?

God wants love to motivate us.

God lavishly poured His grace on us. In love, He gave His only Son for us, adopted us into His family, and gave His life for us. God also wants us to be motivated by love.

God cares what we do, but He also cares why we do things. As 1 Samuel 16:7 says, people look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. God wants us to be motivated by love for Him, not by false motivators.

This week, we’ll see how to be free from shame, a typical false motivator that quietly directs many people's lives.

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve ate the fruit God had told them not to eat. The next verse says, "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so, they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”

Shame is present throughout the verse, though it’s never mentioned. What did they feel when they saw their nakedness? Shame. Why did they try to cover up? Shame.

Shame still makes us cover up, hide, or withdraw. It separates us from people because we pull back. Yet, our attempts to cover up are as futile as Adam and Eve's. When they heard God coming toward them, they lost all confidence in their fig-leaf clothing and ran to hide.

How often have we also hidden, perhaps keeping silent when we know we should speak up? We avoid a particular person or situation. We work hard to keep people at a distance. All this is motivated by shame.

God offered a better solution to Adam's nakedness, providing garments of skin for them to wear. God also gives us a better solution than covering up and allowing shame to control us. He offers us freedom!

However, before embracing this freedom from shame, we must first identify what causes us to feel shame.

Pause for a moment. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand what causes you shame. Don't try to sidestep or justify it. Acknowledge what brings you shame. Be honest about your source of shame.

Pray

Holy Spirit, help me identify the sources of shame in my life. I want to turn away from shame this week so I can be motivated entirely by love for You.

Reflect and Respond

Listen to what the Holy Spirit brings to your mind. Write down your sources of shame. Open yourself to God's word this week as we learn to overcome shame.