Simply Edify
We are Simply Edify. Our mission is to help strengthen your walk with the Lord. Our goal is to encourage women as we navigate the messiness of life through Biblical studies, personal stories, and practical tips that bolster our walk with Jesus daily.
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Simply Edify
Repentance vs Guilt: Identifying Conviction,True Repentance and Guilt.
Feeling weighed down by guilt and struggling to find the path to true repentance? Join us as we unravel the distinctions between these two experiences from a biblical perspective. Through the lens of King David's story and personal reflections, we explore how guilt can be a particularly heavy burden for women, often exacerbated by self-comparison and unrealistic standards. This episode promises to shed light on how understanding God's merciful nature, as emphasized in Psalm 51, can liberate us from the shackles of sin and align us with His loving expectations.
We also tackle the pervasive issue of "mom guilt" and the pressure to meet unattainable ideals that often lead to feelings of inadequacy. Discover how to differentiate between unhealthy guilt and godly conviction, fostering true repentance and transformation, focusing on God’s character—His kindness, mercy, and readiness to forgive.
Hello and welcome to Simply Edifies podcast. Our goal is to encourage women as we navigate the messiness of life through biblical studies, personal stories and practical tips that bolster our walk with Jesus daily. Thank you for joining us in our episode today.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome back. We are on our second episode in the series that we're doing based off of our new devotional that we have. If you would like to find that and purchase that, you can find it on Amazon. It's called issues of the heart. It is a 31 day Bible study and these studies are not super long, so it's kind of just a couple minutes to do in your Bible time and looking over different topics that have root issues and that, when we can kind of dig them out and get to the heart of the problem, makes everything go a little smoother. So today's topic is on repentance versus guilt, versus just feeling guilty, Having true repentance and conviction in your heart, as opposed to that kind of just feeling guilty. It was interesting.
Speaker 2:I went to a ladies conference just last weekend and one of the breakout sessions was um, an elderly lady talking about guilt and it was really good.
Speaker 2:She, you know, gave personal example of how she just lived with, you know, guilt and how she's talked to she was a um, a stewardess on a airplane for for her job for many, many years and how she would talk to people and just the guilt-ridden consciences of people nowadays, and she just talked about how to really how. As women, we feel that guilt more than men tend to um. When men read verses in the bible like your sins are cast as far as the east is from the west, they believe that and they act on that and they don't necessarily have that burden of guilt as much as females do. Some men. You know this isn't across the board, you know, but when true repentance is found, it's a little bit easier for men to think more logically about it as opposed to emotionally, and be able to reason through the fact that I have repented, Christ has forgiven me through the fact that I have repented crisis forgiven me, I can move on where it's kind of.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like that, you know, where a man says he's fine and he's probably fine and a woman says she's fine and there's like a million different things, like bubbling under the surface, and so there's just like that, that aspect of being more straightforward versus reading into things, and so, yeah, we can read. Oh, yeah, but sure he's done that. But you know also, right, I've messed up, right, and maybe he's really mad at me. Even when he says he's not mad at me and right, and obviously we do, we tend to do that for sure.
Speaker 2:And then we, we have the self-imposed guilt of. You know just, it's one of the big things I think, especially when it comes to women and mothers especially is we compare ourselves so much to other people that we put this self-imposed feeling of inadequacy and guilt and you know well, I should be doing this or I should be doing that, and I could do, or look at how much better they are than me, and and all that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of aspects of it. For the sake of time we are not going to delve into all of it today, but I just kind of wanted to mention that in the Bible we have kind of a good example of like guilt, as opposed to true repentance, in David when he sinned with Bathsheba. At first he just tried to cover up his actions, like he knew what he had done was wrong. He was going to get in trouble. So he tried to fix it right. He tried to have uriah come home and like hide the fact that bashi was pregnant with david. And then, when that didn't work, he compounded his sin and killed, had had Uriah killed, and really at that point he's thinking, oh well, I fixed the problem. Well, not really, because God sends Nathan the prophet and after Nathan says you know, thou art the man, and we don't know how long it was in between those times. Obviously it was before Bathsheba had the baby. But either way, david didn't really feel the conviction until he recognized his sin before God, until Nathan pointed out what he had done, how it was a cause for the enemies of God to speak against God and how his actions had really affected God. That was when we see a real heart change with David and he, after repentance, writes Psalm 51, which many go to, as you know, kind of the example of a repentant heart. So just in that passage you can go through it on your own time and look through it.
Speaker 2:One of the things that helps when we are feeling that conviction of the Holy Spirit and we are trying to repent and it's a difficult process it's to remember who God is and what he has done for us already and that he is good and that he will forgive us and that he does love us and he does have our best in mind. So when you break down that passage and you look at who God is through that passage I'll just read a few of the things. In verse one, it tells us that he's merciful and full of tender mercies. He's the only one that can clean our sins.
Speaker 2:God is a righteous judge. He's a righteous deliverer. He's the God of our salvation. He will make us hear joy and gladness. He won't leave us in despair. These are just some things that, as I went through the Psalm, I pulled out about who God is and how he deals with us. So when we're talking about repenting and changing, it's very important to remember who God is in our life, cause we think of men and displeasing men so often when we have gone against God. We think of how men react to us when we have gone against them.
Speaker 2:Right and we also men I mean mankind, right, right but we.
Speaker 3:We also forget that god knows everything and that thing that we're holding back confessing or repenting of, I think sometimes there's like this fear of actually bringing it to the light when it already is. God already knows and the kindness that he's treating you with now is the same kindness that he will show you going forward, because it's all laid bare before him, even the things that you might not even admit to yourself or you can't even, won't even put into words, maybe like heart, attitude, sins or just like deeper sense that maybe no one else can see. But you know, like there has been no, like there has been no lightning from the sky, you've not been struck down. Right, that's not waiting for you to like confess it, to strike you down. He's waiting so that you can be rid of it for for your sake, right and just like restoration between you and and you and yeah, because most of the time when we're sinning, we're sinning against others as well.
Speaker 2:So you know, there's always that element of fear of the people's response. Right, what you have to do, right, you have to just trust god through that process. You know and and know that in the end it is the right thing to do, because, more than likely, sooner or later it's going to come to light anyways.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, yeah, and it's. It's really just being honest and moving forward and knowing that, knowing who your father is like. There are so many people who don't have good examples of fathers and it can really mar your view of god. There's really no human comparison to God and it's kind of a trap in a way. Even if you have a wonderful father, he's still nothing like God.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, which is interesting that you bring that up, because that was one of the points that that lady had said in the talk, because she had a very difficult relationship with her father and she said you know, god just wants to be our loving father, and, and that's so true, right. So when we feel guilty, right, there's a few things that we can maybe ask ourselves to kind of solidify in our mind whether this is actual conviction and I need to repent of something, or if I'm just feeling guilty, right. And one of these things is, like, when we do something, is it, are you just embarrassed or you fear what others may think if they know this part of you or that you've done this or something right Is, are you just feeling fear and embarrassment or is it that you actually know that this is because I have sinned against God? Yeah, so when we think about it, even though I may have done like an action towards another person, but really it's offended God, and I don't see in the scripture where we can actually have true repentance without recognizing how our sin, whatever it is that we've done, is a sin against God and not just others. So even if you go to that person and like make it right. If you don't recognize that, no, I have sinned against God and I need to repent and ask God for forgiveness for this, it's still not going to be right. You're still going to have that, that relationship strained between you and God.
Speaker 2:Right, god is going to keep bringing you back to that point of no, you need to repent of this and then you need to just ask yourself what God's word says about the topic. Right? So as moms, you know, we feel like I was saying the mom guilt of oh, I should be like this person, or I should do like this or whatever, I should have the perfect clean house all the time or something whatever like that. Right, so there's that aspect of just, I feel inadequate or not enough. Okay, but then there's another side of it of well, I know that I was super lazy today. I wasted a lot of time. I know that the Bible talks about being lazy in many places in the Proverbs and it talks about redeeming the time. So this isn't about me comparing myself to someone else. This is about me not addressing sin issues in my life that I need to get right, and there's a big difference.
Speaker 3:I think that because there has been that um just the whole mom guilt thing Okay, and we've kind of shunned it and I think in a way has been that, um, just the whole mom guilt thing Okay, and we've kind of shunned it and I think, in a way, that that's good, because sometimes that mom guilt is very unhealthy and not helpful and really is something we shouldn't hold on to. However, because we've like shunned it so radically, we've not taken some hard looks like you were saying, yeah, not taken some hard. Looks like you were saying, yeah, I shouldn't sit and compare my house, my house to your house, or my situation to your situation, or my house to a magazine or whatever. That that would be like the bad mom guilt. But am I redeeming my time? That's a question that's between me and God really, and if I'm not willing to address that, that's not mom guilt. That is conviction like good, healthy conviction of are you using what you've been given to the best of your ability?
Speaker 2:Right, you take any issue and and that's how you would address it, right, you know if you're, if you're, quick tempered, you know, oh, I feel bad because I lost it and yelled at my kids, okay, but that's not the heart of the issue. The heart of the issue is that the Bible says be angry and sin, not right. So you're sinning against God. When you are angry, it's not because you blew up at your kid, as in the offenses against your kid, right? He's suffering the consequence of your sin.
Speaker 2:At that point, and I think that's kind of where our mind shift needs to take place, we think often about how we sin against others, but we don't think often about how we sin against God.
Speaker 2:So there's a verse it's 2 Corinthians 7, 9, and it says Now rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance, for godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death. So it shows us right there that there's two different sorrows or two different feelings of. We could say one would be like guilt and the other would be like conviction. Godly sorrow would be like true conviction, the sorrow of the world worketh death, just to keep that in mind. Like that false conviction, that guilt, that sorrow of the world, it's deadly to our souls. It drags us down. It doesn't bring true change, it just binds us. And that's what Satan wants from us. He wants us to feel inadequate, he wants us to feel like we are failures in every way, shape and form and that we can't do anything right. And then he wants us to never repent of the true issues.
Speaker 3:That's and that right. There is the key. If the difference between conviction and guilt is, conviction encourages you to change and guilt is a weight that holds you down and doesn't inspire change. It only inspires like downward spiraling Right. And so you know, if you listen to that voice, is it, is it accusing you or is it encouraging you Because you think, okay, convictions. There's nothing positive about conviction. But, truthfully, if it's the Holy Spirit speaking to you, it's not going to be this angry, accusatory voice it's going to be. This is not who you were made to be. This is not pleasing God. There's something better for you. There is hope you can change. You know there's. It's. It really is positive.
Speaker 2:Right, you're listening, right, if you're actually listening Right, even when, when I think of when Nathan did come to David and said you know, thou art the man. It was this. These are the consequences now of your actions, which were definitely heavy in there, but there was still that element of god will forgive you and still in good, can still be in good standing with god where, as opposed to, like I think of saul, when saul disobeyed and samuel and that whole thing Saul was not repentant and he had everything taken away from him. He had his kingdom. He said your kingdom is going to be torn away from you at this point. So we do see that when there is that true repentance and change and conviction, god always wants to bring us to a point of restoration. He always wants us to have fellowship with him and no matter the consequences here on earth, how hard those, what might be, he still desires to have restoration and to move forward. So it's just we have to remember that about.
Speaker 3:God. There's so many verses that talk about like I'll keep him in perfect peace. His mind has stayed on me because he trusted in me for one example. And the name of the Lord is a high tower. The righteous run into it and are safe, saved. I'm quoting this off memory so I might have a word or two flip-flopped. But the idea of knowing god, knowing the name of the lord, is trusting him. It's how we have victory and safety and peace is really understanding who our God is Absolutely. And when we know and love him, our sin will become the things that hurt God. We've heard this the things that hurt God will hurt us, or that the things that are ugly to God will become ugly to us. And then we have that also knowing him, we know that he's kind and he's merciful and he's quick to forgive and he does cast things from the East our sin from the East, as far as East is from the West. We know that because we know our God.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and just as we close this out, I just want to highly recommend that you read through Psalm 51 and pick out what it says about God through that chapter. Just write it down for yourself and see who our God is in relation to us. When we have fallen and when we have failed he is still all of those things. Thank you for listening today. We hope you're encouraged and then also, if you'd want to get the book, like we said, check it out on Amazon.
