Defusing Shame Rising from Deception - Denise Pass
Shame RX: You do not have to be defined by lies you believed when you repent and turn from those lies and replace the lie with truth.
1 John 2:1
“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
Dumb. Gullible. Ignorant. Blind.
These are some of the feelings we experience when someone has deceived us. How could we not see?
And the one who deceives us feels they are clever for deceiving, but they have been deceived themself.
Who takes pride in lying to others?
The culture around us is infused with lies and does not even know it. Proclaiming sexual sin and murder of the unborn as a right, they march to boldly proclaim their “truth”. Only thing is, they have been deceived and don’t know it yet.
But that day of revelation will be filled with shame and sorrow. They acted on what they thought they “knew”, doing the bidding of the enemy of our souls.
And so it is with us In our daily lives. Man tries to deceive others to a new version of the truth for personal gain or to cover up evil. And we can be deceived by sin’s deceitfulness, as it says in Hebrews 3:13 (NIV), “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”
The ones deceived can be prone to shame. If only we had seen. But this is the nature of deception: it is not easily detectable. It is purposely concealed.
There is no shame when you trusted someone who told you they were telling you the truth and yet hid their sins from you. There is grief and sorrow that choices were made to hurt others, but shame is an indictment we need not accept when we had no part in the deception or evil deed.
To those who find yourselves awakened to deceit you have fallen for that caused you to participate in evil, there is a Redeemer Who removes all of our sin and shame. You do not have to be defined by lies you believed when you repent and turn from those lies and replace the lie with truth.
Deception leads us to sin. But the good news of today’s Scripture is that we have an Advocate Who bears our sins and prays for us. The One we truly sinned against forgives us! And there is also another sweet promise in this verse – we don’t have to cave to sin. Did you catch it? So that you “may not sin”. We have power now to turn away from lies and walk in truth—to choose to walk in righteousness. Shame off of us!
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Need to get rid of shame in your life? Join the Shame Off You Bible Study Mondays at 7pm ET.
