When my conscience is troubled and I feel guilty, there are two possible sources from which such self-reproach may come. One is the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit convicts a believer, He always desires to bring us to repentance, forgiveness, and hope. Remember, He strives to glorify Christ, and an important way in which He does so is by leading the sinning Christian back to the Gospel and back to obedience. When we sin, He works to provoke confession in our heart so that we may believe (and feel) the love and acceptance of the Savior. Since Christ already paid the punishment for our sin, we have no reason to fear Him when we fail. Rather, we should run to Him and find joy, peace, and hope.
The other source of guilt comes from our enemy, the devil. His desire is not hope, but despair. Satan is “The Accuser” who delights to keep us far from the Savior. His would have us be afraid to admit our failures, to stay away from the cross when we sin. Our destruction is his goal. Consequently, he works to make us feel irreparable shame. He tries to convince us that our faith is a fraud, that our claims of love for Christ are lies, and that our situation is beyond hope. We should just give up and accept our miserable condition for what it is. We are unworthy of God and have no right to come near to Him.
The devil is a liar and a murderer. That’s what he does, he deceives and kills. Therefore, whenever Christians feel guilt, we must not listen to him. We must preach truth to ourselves, the truth of the Gospel. It is true, we are unworthy of God . . . in our own name! But in the name of Christ, we have full access to the throne of grace. In practice we are sinners, but in position we are saints. The presence of God is the safest place to be for a forgiven sinner. He loves us and accepts us on the basis of the obedience of His Son, not on the basis of our works. That’s why the Good News is so good. To avoid Christ in our hearts and minds, or to feel a sense of despair because of our own inadequacies, is to forget the Gospel and to believe the lies of the evil one. By definition, the Gospel agrees that we are wicked failures. But in the Beloved, God loves us and forgives us and accepts us.
So when we feel guilty for something, we must turn to the Savior and receive His amazing grace afresh. And if after sitting at the foot of the cross our conscience continues to plague, we must recognize that the source of such conviction is not God, but the devil. We must put on the armor of Truth and engage him in battle until the roaring lion runs away with his lying tail between his legs.
And then we must begin preparing for the next engagement, for he will not stay away long. But that battle, too, will be ours if fought in the strength of the Son of God.