When we sin, we tend to feel bad about the problem, even to the extent that we want to hide it. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, we cover ourselves with fig leaves. We pretend we are fine even though we are not. [Shame] silences us. It causes us to lie and rely on ourselves.

Shame is the raincoat of the soul, repelling the living water that would otherwise establish us as the beloved of God. It prevents us from receiving grace and truth where we need them the most. Many factors contribute to shame, but ultimately the problem is that we resist the reality of the Father's love. We believe, falsely that our sin and weakness disqualify us for receiving His love.

Two Experiences Of Shame

• Appropriate Shame (Good Shame) - Good shame alerts us to our separation from God and others, potentially causing us to cry out to God for mercy; it alerts us to wrongdoing and the need for self-correction. Shame guards self-respect and motivates us to make and maintain boundaries of respect in our relationships. And when we do so, God replaces our fig leaves with robes of righteousness - garments that lend form and order to our relationships. Good shame leads us to life.

• Bad Shame - Bad shame forms a "shame" coat, causing us to conclude that we are unworthy of love and honor. Bad shame expresses itself as "inner torment, a sickness of the soul" that divides us from self, others, and God. Bad shame invites the soul to turn on itself rather than to welcome mercy. Bad shame bars us from life. When this shame is chronic, a permanent trait based upon repeated shaming experiences, we will live diminished lives with little expectation of empowerment and joy. We become "outcast from life's feasts."

Sin thus gives rise to appropriate shame (the realization of sin) and bad shame (sinful attitudes that we impose on ourselves and others). In this way, shame is a consequence and a penalty for sin (includes both one's we have committed and those committed against us).

In This Exchange Of Our Shame For Freedom In Christ, Our Goal Is To Recieve...

1. God's powerful love bestowed on us as the basis of our new identity as sons and daughters - Just as shame can pervade our identity to the degree that it defines us, so does the Father seek to override shame's power by defining us as His beloved sons and daughters. > "And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” - 2 Corinthians 6:18 NLT

2. The power of God's cleansing (Receive the new garments of righteousness; remove the old shame coats) - I imagine that cleansing stream moving into the deep places of the soul, removing shaming words and pictures while imparting comfort and healing to the shame-related wounds. Jesus' healing stream flushes out those sources of inferiority still seeking to define the soul. > "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to Himself through Christ..." - 2 Corinthians 5:17-18a NLT ~ "But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness." - 1 John 1:9 NLT

3. The living witness of a non-shaming Christian community that reveals to us, at a tangible human level, the freedom Christ has won for us at Calvary - We need people who provide new models and new sources of identification for us. The bad effect of social shame can be displaced through relationships that mirror the freedom to be who we are as bearers of God's image. These are caring individuals who mediate the Father's tenderness to us. At the same time, others can free us to admit that we are broken by sin and shame and are in need of others. God's love is perfect and the basis for emerging out of shame. Still, it is the witness of His nonshaming people that frees us to actually grasp at the human level that it is safe to be human—at once a child of God and an imperfect being who dares reveal his fears and flaws to others. We are both broken and precious bearers of God's image. Realizing (slowly at first) that we are free to be known in the range of our humanity invites us to remove our shame coats and receive love in their place. This can occur in individual relationships or in group settings. > See the "One Another Passages" in Scripture (PDF)

No matter how out of control we feel in our compulsion, the truth is that we are making choices. We thus contribute to our estrangement from God and others; we make decisions that damage our relationships. Sin is not weakness but wickedness. God wants to forgive, but He can only do that if we acknowledge the sin that stems from our weakness. Having received forgiveness, we are then free to receive holy power where we need it most.

Sin can only be erased through its exposure. And that exposure occurs as one's sin is laid bare through confession before God and other human beings. This is painful! In confession we are exposed once more to the reality of our sin and the appropriate shame and guilt that accompany it.

Confession requires community—the witness of trusted brothers and sisters. I firmly believe that without that witness our efforts to live honestly and wholeheartedly will not work.

Through confession we put to death any false image of perfection. With our sin presented in full view of our brother or sister, we cannot hide... We confess the specific way we have failed. Period. And in such a painful reckoning with what we have done, we die a sinner's death... Public confession actively destroys our false pride.

Bible Verses

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us." - Romans 12:1 NLT

"Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord." - Acts 3:19 NIV

"Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.' And you forgave the guilt of my sin." - Psalm 32:5 NIV

"Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy." - Proverbs 28:13 ESV

"For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." - Matthew 6:14 NIV

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." - 1 John 1:9 NIV

When it comes to sin, our goal is to...

1. CONFESS our sin to God and to others

2. RECEIVE God's forgiveness and cleansing

3. BE RESTORED to relationship with Him and His church

4. RENOUNCE any future participation in that sin - This may include getting rid of temptation-inciting things, stopping certain habits and practices that lead to that sin, and making amends with people we have negatively affected.

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Steps to Confession

Confession is not necessarily a one-shot procedure. Instead it is a process; it unfolds.

1. Seek out a trustworthy "priest" in your faith community - This is our trustworthy fellow believers who can hear our confession and support us in our recovery. Enlist these godly friends as our prayer partners.

2. Tell your trustworthy friend(s) in plain terms what you have done wrong - This is the time to come clean. In speaking our sin out loud, we define the falsehood and take responsibility for it. The confessional liberates us from the buffers of rationalization and dismissal, of which usually occur in silence. Through verbal expression before another, the sin comes into the light. It can now find its end on the cross. To be sure, we may need to confess the same sin many times over before its domination in our lives is completely broken. This can be true of long-standing sins like sexual fantasy and masturbation (also true of deeply help attitudes like misogyny, self-hatred, or selfishness).

3. Our "priest," after binding away the sin, speaks forgiveness over the person - The proclamation from our trusted friend, "You are forgiven!" conveys the truth that God has released us from the guilt and shame of our sin. We are now free to stand before Him and others uprightly, no longer bowed down by the weight of our sin. We can live with Him now in the light of His victory over sin and death.

4. Our "priest" releases cleansing of that sin from our midst - To release cleansing is to agree with what the Lord promises to do, to "cleanse us from all wickedness." In this way, our "priest" could simply say, "I release the cleansing power of God on __________ (name of person) over this confessed sin. Thank You Father that You are cleansing ________ (name of person) from the power of this sin over his/her life." Remember this is a two-parter work of God: "But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to (#1) FORGIVE us our sins and to (#2) CLEANSE us from all wickedness." - 1 John 1:9 NLT

5. Our "priest" blesses us as one beloved of the Father and one belonging to His Body, the Church - The priest represents the church, to which one can now be knit in anew. Sin breaks fellowship; confession restores it.

6. Our "priest" leads us to renounce the sin of which we have been forgiven - This is key to breaking longstanding sin patterns. As an act of our will, we take authority over that sin. In that authority we renounce that power of sin in the greater power granted us in Christ. Renouncing then is simply saying, "No! I will no longer participate in this sin (or give into this temptation). I make a choice to honor God in all future actions." Here's what David Matthis says about renouncing, "When our renouncing of sin and Satan proceed from a heart growing in its disdain for sin, and delight in holiness, our words reinforce and buttress and fortify our hearts. Words of renunciation against specific sins and temptations are not time-outs from the actual fight but a valuable weapon in the campaign." > "The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to RENOUNCE ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age..." - Titus 2:11–12 ESV

Such wounding may be abuse (mental, verbal, physical, sexual) or inadequate love and affirmation or any other number of harmful effects. The wounds contribute to our misdirected grasping after [illegitimate] love, fueling our sin.

In this Exchange of Our Wounds For Christ's Healing, Our Goal Is To...

1. Participate in a Loving and Supportive Community - Here we rely upon others who bear with us in our suffering. We must seek out safe people who can help bear our burdens. The truth is sin makes us sick, be it our own sin or another's sin. We can find healing as we involve ourselves with trustworthy fellow believers. > "We should not stop gathering together with other believers, as some of you are doing. Instead, we must continue to encourage each other even more as we see the day of the Lord coming." - Hebrews 10:25 GW

2. Acknowledge Our Wounds To Face Our Heart's True Response - We first take time to acknowledge our woundings and then face our heart's true response to the incident at hand, be it in the distant past or in the recent past. We must make known our suffering to ourselves and to others. This is not to demonize someone but rather to confess our response. We take responsibility for what we can control, which is only ourselves and the ensuing response we choose, consciously or unconsciously. > "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life." - Psalm 139:23-24 NLT

3. Wait On God While Pouring Out Our Heart To Him (Learn How To Bear Suffering And Abide In Christ In Pain) - We are learning to wait before Christ in a posture of active suffering. Don't allow yourself to descend into hopelessness and despair. Instead, allow yourself to pour out your heart's emotions to God (weep, rage, share your sadness, frustrations, sense of limitation, etc.) and ask Him to help you bear it. Learn to abide with Christ in pain. After all, Jesus teaches us to suffer in and with Him. In this way He becomes our comfort and our hope as never before. > "Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken." - Isaiah 55:22 NIV ~ "Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you." - 1 Peter 5:7 NLT

4. Forgive Those Who Have Wounded Us > Unforgiveness towards those who have hurt us leads to bitterness, a toxic emotion that will eat you up on the inside and can lead to sinful behavior of revenge or other actions that seek vindication or relief of that bad feeling.

5. "Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you." - Ephesians 4:32 NLT - "Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others." - Colossians 3:13 NLT ~ "If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins." - Mattgew 6:14-15 NLT

This weakness includes the tendency toward habitual sin. This tendency is not in itself sin, nor need it be shrouded by shame or empowered by unhealed wounds, but it does lead to many problems. Our weaknesses can be distinguished from our shame, our sin and our wounds. This weakness is something in us that is flawed or fragile, not whole, and does not conform to the Biblical idea of how we should be.

Bible Verses

"My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise." - Psalm 51:17 NIV

"Each time he said, 'My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.' So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong." - 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NLT

Our goal is to surrender our weaknesses to God and others so that, like Paul, we might discover God’s strength as we seek to serve Him in our weaknesses.

1. ME with GOD (intimacy and communion with God)- God supplies His strength for our weakness in many ways. God takes the weakness we experience in our relationships and in our sexuality and uses them to establish His powerful love in us. In those areas where we fail to love well, God meets us and invites us into deeper communion with Himself and into a deeper reliance on Him.

2. ME with OTHERS (fellowship, community, relationship, accountability) - God also invites us to join with others so that our empowering can become established in context with real people. While God pervades the process of gaining strength in weakness, He is not content for it to be a string of lonely mystical experiences (us only dealing with God). He wants to use other people to empower us to love well.