Evicting Guilt and Shame from Our Lives, Part 2, Ep 3-12

Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons, and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing part two of two demonic influences, the demon of Guilt and the demon of Shame.  These two demons can work separately but are intertwined and when they work together it’s like a one two punch coming against us. This week we are going to discuss the demon of Shame and talk more about how they work together against us and what we need to do to evict them from our lives.

Before we begin, I want to ask our regular listeners to consider supporting us each week as we work to provide you quality and useful information. For the month of April we are sending our monthly supporters an appreciation gift of Anointing Oil. Your support is appreciated more than we can express.  You can show your support at www.buzzsprout.com/1995558/support.  There is a link in the notes.

Let’s review again the definitions of both guilt and shame.

Guilt: the fact of having committed a breach of conduct especially violating law and involving a penalty.

Shame: a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming or impropriety.

In our last episode we talked about guilt as being the strongman.  If you recall, the reason behind that is that we feel guilty before we feel shame.  Even if it is a nanosecond earlier, it is still guilt showing up first.  We can feel guilt even before we do something.  If we are thinking about doing something we know is wrong, we are already feeling conviction. We know, we already know, and we feel guilty as we are in the process of doing it or deciding to do it.  

Where we start to feel the pain of shame is generally after we have done something we shouldn’t have and now we feel the shame towards ourself about it. The demon of shame can increase it’s strength if we do nothing about it.  If instead we chose to remain silent, hide it, pretend it didn’t happen or lie about it, we compound shame’s impact drastically. Shame feeds itself and then invites embarrassment, unworthiness, and whatever demons are involved in your sin.  For example, if it is an affair, then the demon of lust will join shame, adultery.  If it an emotional affair, then that is a fantasy lust.  If the sin involves alcohol or drugs, then we can expect the demon of addiction, or escape to make their way into your life. 

When we feel shame, it has a more direct impact on how we feel about ourselves, how we identify ourselves as either a good person or a bad person. Are we a successful person or are we a failure as a person.  Shame hits us at our core. If it is a sin issue we are struggling with over and over then we likely see ourselves as a failure and not worthy of seeking God’s forgiveness.  Those thoughts place a wedge between us and God.  We don’t accept Jesus as our savior because we are rejecting what He did for us on the cross. We are walking down a path of eternal separation by holding this inside and not dealing with it with Him.

I’ve seen some people try to cope with their shame by doing good works.  The thought is that they can make up for what they are doing by evening out their offense.  They think they will feel better about themselves because they did “something” because if it, something that was good. Doing something good, does not wipe out the bad anymore than people who think they can buy off their guilt feelings. Nowhere does the Bible say to make amends for your sin by doing good works.  There are some religions that teach that and it is entirely unbiblical.  We need to seek forgiveness for our sins.  Our repentance is a part of that or it is not a true seeking of forgiveness. Out of repentance, if we want to do good works, then so be it, but they are not tied to any past sinful behavior as a way to absolve anyone of anything. Works done to seek absolution are useless and a waste of time. Seeking forgiveness without repentance is dangerous and a waste of time. God is not mocked. 

When we carry shame, we carry the weight of our sin.  When we have sincerely sought forgiveness and we still carry around shame, then we are carrying around the lies of the enemy.  You can still have feelings of what you did, that’s conviction coming in, but we do have to move forward, deal with the consequences, particularly of it affects someone else, and maintain a restored relationship with the Lord.  The demon of shame wants to tell you none of that is possible, that you are rejected by God, that you are no longer able to approach God.  All of that is a lie.

What can happen if we do not deal with our shame, but instead hide it, hoping no one will discover what we have done.  Inevitably, unaddressed shame will begin to bubble up and we will see a change in behavior.  Anger issues may creep into situations that may be bothersome, but not so much to illicit anger.  I’ve talked before about what I consider to be loud and quiet spirits.  Shame starts off as quiet, because it wants you to feel bad and keep it hidden.  If it remains hidden, it remains in your life.  Slowly it will percolate.  The slower it can percolate, the easier it can remain incognito.  Ultimately it wants to lead you to destruction, so a slow percolate will accomplish that more effectively than a loud bang.  You may not even realize shame is behind these new emerging emotions, and that is even better.  You aren’t going to want to talk about it, if shame can get you feeling bad enough about yourself and if you don’t talk, you won’t seek forgiveness. You will steer clear of conviction and anyone who will try to get you to draw close to the Lord. 

Shame works from the inside out.  While guilt works from the outside inward. Shame can lead to depression and anxiety.  Unfortunately, shame can take you so far down the road of despair that you will even consider suicide.  It is a very strong demon.  This is not a low level demon and we need to understand that and take it seriously enough that we want to seek eviction immediately. Shame will produce numerous fears in us as well.  We can have a fear of condemnation, a fear of accusation, a fear of judgment. 

Guilt is often easier to address, guilt can be produced in us for things done to us, omissions on our part. We can often admit to guilt.  We may get caught and we can’t get around our guilt. Shame on the other hand, we don’t openly address shame.  We don’t want to address shame, we want to hide it. Put guilt and shame together and we get that one two punch. We may justify our guilt, but we don’t generally justify our shame, we can’t.  We know when we are justifying that we are lying and making excuses.  Our shame confirms we are lying when we justify.

So now we know about guilt, we know about shame, we see how they work separately, we see how they work together.  Now what?

Well, now we need to get rid of them both.

In order to do that we have to first Acknowledge our guilt and our shame with ourselves, and then with the Lord. He already knows anyhow, we can’t hide anything from Him, so come clean and come clean entirely. Until you can do that, you will limit and even block your ability to get guilt and shame out of your life. What if you are carrying guilt or shame from childhood, as a byproduct of how you were raised.  Still go through these steps because we are trying to break the sin that placed these on you.  We want to break the sin that occurred to bring it in your life and then for your role in perpetuating it, even if you didn’t know better.  Ignorance is no excuse and we want to evict, not argue about the semantics of what you knew or didn’t know. 

Next we need to repent. The act of repentance is a complete turning away from the sinful behavior. If you don’t think you can do that, then you need to work on the root of what is causing you to sin.  To be in a cycle of sin, repentance, sin, repentance, over and over is not going to work. You didn’t actually repent if you keep returning to your sin.  Repentance needs to be taken seriously as a complete turning away. Again, even if this was created as a byproduct of how you were raised or what a poorly indoctrinated church or pastor taught you, we want to repent of any involvement with it. We don’t want to give the enemy any legal rights to remain, so a complete repentance is one step in how we remove those rights.

Ask for forgiveness, this includes forgiving yourself. We want to seek forgiveness for any and all, knowing and unknowing participation in activities, thoughts, behaviors that resulted in your guilt and shame, condemnation of yourself, a lack of forgiveness to others or yourself. This is essential.  Without this step, we will not receive the forgiveness we need to move forward.

Fourth, look for any areas in your life that will lead you back to feelings of shame or guilt. We don’t want to carry around the past.  We don’t want to be reminded of the past, we don’t want to associate with people who were a part of the past that led us into any sin or who are continually bringing you back to those feelings of guilt and shame, particularly when those feelings are a result of a byproduct of your childhood or an unbiblical church or pastoral teaching.

Fifth, we need to tell the demons of guilt and the demons of shame and any and all of its associates to leave you immediately. You are a child of God, and are covered by the blood of Jesus and you do not want them in your life.  Revoke their access to you and any rights they have to your mind, body and spirit.

Sixth, we need to make sure we are being proactive in remaining in a repentant, forgiven state.  If we do not have proactive measures in place, what do you think will happen?  Well, we don’t want the enemy to come back and find your house empty and start trying to move in again.  We need to fill the empty house we just created and we want to fill it with the Holy Spirit and the Word.  Invite the Holy Spirit into your life, to move and grow in you.  Read the Bible, have some scriptures ready to go to quote when you feel the enemy is antagonizing you.  Be strong. 

Remember, Isaiah 54:17, No weapon formed against you shall prosper.

I hope this has been time that inspires you to want to learn to grow in your relationship with the Lord and build your desire to partner with Him. We want to grow in Him and learn how to work with Him to build the Kingdom and Conquer Our Unseen Enemies. The more we grow the more our life will change, and you can help change the lives of anyone around you who is willing.

If you are growing through our podcast, consider supporting us each month as we continue to build the Kingdom of God. www.buzzsprout.com/1995558/support

If you know anyone who might benefit from this, please share. 

As always, let’s discuss our Top Show points:

·      Part 2 of 2 on Guilt and Shame

·      Guilt: the fact of having committed a breach of conduct especially violating law and involving a penalty.

·      Shame: a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming or impropriety.

·      The demon of shame can increase its strength if we do nothing about it.  If we chose to remain silent, hide it, or lie about it, we compound shame’s impact drastically.

·      Shame feeds itself and then invites embarrassment, unworthiness, and whatever demons are involved in your sin. 

·      When we feel shame, it has a more direct impact on how we feel about ourselves, how we identify ourselves as either a good person or a bad person. Those thoughts place a wedge between us and God. 

·      I’ve seen some people try to cope with their shame by doing good works.  Nowhere does the Bible say to make amends for your sin by doing good works. 

·      We need to seek forgiveness for our sins.  Our repentance is a part of that or it is not a true seeking of forgiveness. Out of repentance, if we want to do good works they are not tied to any past sinful behavior as a way to absolve.

·      When we carry shame, we carry the weight of our sin.  When we have sincerely sought forgiveness and we still carry around shame, then we are carrying around the lies of the enemy. 

·      Unaddressed shame will begin to bubble up and we will see a change in behavior.  Anger issues, etc.

·      Shame works from the inside out.  While guilt works from the outside inward. Shame can lead to depression and anxiety.  We can have a fear of condemnation, a fear of accusation, a fear of judgment. 

·      We don’t want to address shame, we want to hide it. We may justify our guilt, but we don’t generally justify our shame

·      To get rid of them both.

·      In order to do that we have to first Acknowledge our guilt and our shame with ourselves, and then with the Lord.

·      Next we need to repent. The act of repentance is a complete turning away from the sinful behavior. We don’t want to give the enemy any legal rights to remain, so a complete repentance is one step in how we remove those rights.

·      Ask for forgiveness, this includes forgiving yourself.  Without this step, we will not receive the forgiveness we need to move forward.

·      Fourth, look for any areas in your life that will lead you back to feelings of shame or guilt.

·      Fifth, we need to tell the demons of guilt and the demons of shame and any and all of its associates to leave you immediately. Revoke their access to you and any rights they have to your mind, body and spirit.

·      Sixth, we need to make sure we are being proactive in remaining in a repentant, forgiven state.    Invite the Holy Spirit into your life, to move and grow in you.  Read the Bible, have some scriptures ready to go to quote when you feel the enemy is antagonizing you.  Be strong. 

·      Remember, Isaiah 54:17, No weapon formed against you shall prosper.

We encourage you:

·      To have an active Bible reading plan, if you want a personal relationship with the Lord, you need to be active about reading His word.

·      Take a look at my newest book, Conquering Our Unseen Enemies, available on Amazon or our website, Conqueringourunseenenemies.com

·      Follow us in Instagram, @conqueringourunseenenemies and FB.

I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!