It Starts Small

Can I ask you an honest question?

If your entire life story, ALL of it, your secrets and all, was played out on a big screen for the entire world to see, how would that make you feel?

What was your response just now? I believe it was either a good response or a bad response. If you felt positive, chances are you already know where this is going to go.

IF someone were to ask me, what do I want? I want to be authentic. I want the people who know me, and the new people that come and go, to know exactly who I am. I do not want to hide anymore. NO, I refuse to hide. I want people to know, when I say I have been to the bottom of the deepest, darkest, stinkiest, ugliest, stickiest pit possible, they know it. I want people to know by the way I talk and act that I have been in that pit. What on earth could I possibly mean? I mean to look at the way I talk and act and know that I have been there because when I say Christ is all, they know Christ is all. They know I am transformed by a power that is beyond human. They can see my heart on my sleeves. I want to live a life of no secrets. No shame.

When I asked those questions, that icky feeling you got…. my friend that is shame.

I want to explore the topic of shame with you today. Yesterday I wrote about nets. I wrote about the common snares satan uses to get us to stop looking up and start looking down. When you feel shame your entire posture changes. Your shoulders hunched forward and your eyes are frozen to the ground.

² keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2

Jesus despised shame.

I believe there are several types of shame.

The first is the shame of having had something awful and horrible done to you. When someone you know, trusted, and were supposed to trust took your trust and instead of protecting you, they became a perpetrator of awful evil. One in four women have or are being abused sexually, emotionally, physically, or psychologically. I do not have the statistics for men because men are less likely than women to report abuse. Some terrible and awful has been done to a person and they carry shame from it. Shame from these situations often comes from the family. Family tells you to keep it a secret. Perhaps the very person that abused you convinced you that you somehow deserved what happen and you took those lies and made them truth. The shame you wear is like a cloak you wear. You can not take it off and try to hide it with layers and layers of other clothes to hide what is truly underneath.

The second type of shame is having done shameful things. You sinned so horribly bad you do not feel worthy of the very forgiveness you have been given. If others knew who you were, you would be scorned, judged, and no one would want to know you or be your friend. No one could possibly understand how you could do the things you have done. Can I say, that most often, this shame is the result of the first shame I have listed. You have been trying so hard to hide yourself and ut on a fake front, that in the process of it, you have done horrible things to keep your secrets. The pain and suffering you have kept deep inside yourself has become your identity and all you know. If you have truly confessed yourself and sought the Lord’s redemption, you are forgiven. If you have turned away from those sinful acts, but still have no joy or peace, friend, you are still making it your identity. You are in a net of shame.

The third type of shame is the act of receiving shame. It is when you take those bold steps of courage to admit having been abused or the sinful life you are living, and having those you confess it to shame you. There are going to be two types of reaction to your confessions. The first is the people you speak to wrap you up in love, grace and mercy. The second is they shame you. I do not need to give examples of shaming. We have all seen or even been apart of shaming someone.

Shame is an act of evil. The devil’s purpose is to wrap the net of shame around you and choke the very life out of you. He does not want you to become all that God has purposed for your life. He will use shame to remind you everyday of what you were or what happen to you. He will get into your mind and twist your mind until it is a tangled mess. If he can keep you distracted and focused on the past, you will not be able to look up. He uses people to shame you. Anyone that says you are not transformed or judges you and constantly brings up things you have been forgiven for is working evil shame. Most often, those people become fixated on you because it is their own distraction from their own shame.

Shame is the devil’s way of laughing at you.

Did you know it is completely possible to seek redemption and still carry shame? Shame is not guilt. Guilt is knowing you did wrong and lead you to the cross to begin with. Shame is carrying what has happen or you did because you have not accepted that Christ took it to the cross and it is nailed on that cross and died there at the cross with Him. You have become this identity of what has happen or what you did. DO you think Jesus took that with Him so you could then sit in the shame of it? Jesus said he despises shame.

Friend, we have all come short. I have sinned more than you have. I have done awful things in my marriage and life. No one has sinned more than me. I have sat at the bottom of the deepest pit and the darkest decades, lost, confused and wandering. I have spent almost all my life trying to hide and pretend that nothing ever happen to me in my younger years, and constantly falling into the traps and nets of satan. I spend more than two decades taking responsibility for another’s abuse because that was what I was programmed to do. I spent more than two decades believing nothing would ever get better. I believed that because of what happened to me and the things I had done, I deserved everything that came my way. Everything was my fault.

Friend, when you accepted Christ as your Savior, all that shame was put to death and it is time to let it go. Christ wants to give you your new name and identity, but until you let go of who you were, you will be stuck doing the same old things, thinking the same old ways, and walking into the same old nets. A circle of full redemption is Christ working and transforming you to see and understand that as terrible as the things were that happen to you, as terrible the things were that you did, you are no longer a slave to that old nature. You are no longer a slave to pain, grief, and hurt. You are no longer a slave to sin or your flesh.

Jesus is in the catch and release program. He catches you. Pours love, grace and mercy over you and in you to heal you of your past, to give you a new today to walk with Him so you can become fishers of men. There is an entire world out there full of men and women who have suffered at the hands of someone else. There is an entire world full of people out there who have fallen into the snares of sin. There is an entire world full of people you can relate to. You can understand. A suffering world looking for hope and that hope is something you have experienced and can give them through Jesus.

Jesus says, take that cloak of shame off. What you were you are no more. Jesus, in God’s Word, tells you who you are. IF he says you are forgiven, you are forgiven. If he says you are redeemed, you are redeemed. If he says he will heal you, you will be healed. Friend, take that cloak off and throw it in the fires of God’s cleansing altar. DO not be ashamed of the very things God has rescued you from.

I do not know about you, but I do not want to hide anymore, in fact I refuse to hide. I am no longer ashamed of what I once was. Instead, I am now a living, breathing, walking testimony of His love, grace and mercy. I want to be authentic. When I share my story, I want people to see there is a living God that rescues and delivers. Through all that I do, I want people to see the transformation power of God. To know this was what I once was, and this is who He has made me today.

I know I still face people that will raise their eyebrows. I do not want to be put on a pedestal by others. I want others to see the possibility of God. If he can take someone as despicable as me and transform my life….. guess what…. he can do the same for you. I believe it is possible to make satan regret he ever messed with you. When you receive the power of Christ to walk in boldness and to throw that nasty cloak of shame into the fire, you have a story to tell. A testimony to share and that makes Satan tremble. He now knows that you know he has no power over you. He will not stop trying to lay traps for you, but he trembles because you walk with the power of Heaven in you through the Holy Spirit. He knows you now have a voice to share that all these “things” can be overcome and healed.

God never meant for the terrible things to happen to you. He never meant for us to live lives in pain, fear, suffering, or sin. His son came from all the glory of heaven to walk as flesh with us. He went to the cross and nailed on that cross was all of humanity’s sin, guilt, and shame. He despises shame and so should you. It is a weapon of the enemy to keep us from being a walking testimony of the power of God’s Love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

Right now, look at your feet. What shame are you trapped in? Close your eyes and stand boldly and say no more. Throw that net, that cloak into the fires! You have nothing to be ashamed of! You are forgiven and redeemed. You are no longer the very things that Jesus paid the price for. Be authentic. Be who God has made you to be. You have a story to share. You have a testimony to share.

¹⁵ My eyes are always on the Lord,
for he will pull my feet out of the net.
Psalms 25:15