Biblical Healing from Shame

Shame.  Inherently, it is such a painful topic. By definition, shame is something we don't readily want to talk about, because it brings up emotions and connotations that by definition we would rather hide. It’s so easy to just say: “Let's just all pretend it's not a thing, okay?”

So, Why Uncover Shame? 

And yet the enormous problem with that deeply entrenched tendency to deny shame, is that it only gets stronger when we try to hide or downplay or deny it.   Very frustrating, right?

So why should we risk potentially feeling embarrassed or humiliated by exploring or talking about our own shame?  Well, because it's the only way to begin getting freedom from it. I promise you that's true.

The thing is, shame is like this invisible parasite, or perhaps you might think of it like a virus, that comes in undetected and begins to do substantial damage to our souls, our views of ourselves, and how we interact with others, in ways that we rarely fully appreciate.  

The Dark Accusations coming from Shame 

Shame comes in and says, often without us ever realizing it, that not only are you a sinner, you're bad. Not only are you guilty for what you've done, you're bad for who you are.  Shame attacks us in global ways, around our sense of being, with general declarations about who we are not:  You're not lovable, you're not valuable, you're not gifted, at least not in anything that matters. Often in the same breath, shame happily accuses us by lying to us about who “he” (aka Satan) says we are: dumb, slow, ugly, unworthy, and the list goes on and on.   

Shame also creates this internal caste system, whereby if you are riddled with enough of it, you inherently feel disqualified from truly being accepted or valuable, or being able to express your gifts, or hang out with the people that are the “good” people, the ones who are liked and respected and esteemed. 

The Struggle Christians can Face

For Christians, it's often actually shame that makes it the hardest for us to receive forgiveness, because we feel so bad internally, so inherently bad, that it feels like forgiveness can't possibly address that.  Somehow the work of Jesus on the cross is tragically rendered impotent in comparison to how bad we feel.  In excruciating spaces like that, how in the world do we find hope for any kind of change? 

Deep Wisdom and Liberating Hope from the Word

This is where the Bible becomes extraordinarily important. It is a truly 100% unique resource for helping us understand shame and how ultimately to counter it.

For the sake of your ultimate freedom and happiness, I encourage you to persevere down this biblical road in order to have the understanding you need to combat shame in much more powerful ways.

Created in Goodness 

In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, we are told the creation story. God goes about creating everything that we currently enjoy, including the first thing which was creating light.   (Imagine creating light!)  He also has this incredible tendency to declare at the end of each major act of creation: “This is good.”  After all the major things are created and the ecosystems are singing in harmony,  and Adam and Eve are strolling around in perfect peace as king and queen, living and breathing in perfect goodness, God sees creation in all of its glorious splendor and says with delight:  “This is very good.”   

We learn from Genesis 1 and 2, that we originally lived in pure goodness and even were pure goodness, just as God is.  Those are the waters we were meant to swim in, and on the other side, we certainly will! 

The Bad News…Literally and Figuratively

We have our first foreboding clue though in verse 25 of chapter 2, where it says: The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.”   So Adam and Eve had absolutely no sense of what it meant to feel not just guilty, but in particular, to feel  bad. Their reproductive organs, perhaps the most visible way in which we are Godlike in terms of our ability to create, had no connotations with being inappropriate or vulnerable to exploitation.

But as most of you know, through the insidious persuasion of Satan, the only being who is truly bad, who sinned with no external compulsion, enticed Adam and Eve to disobey the only command that God had given them.   Adam and Eve are held responsible for their disobedient choices and the consequences are handed out. 

For the sake of our discussion on shame, the most significant thing that happened was that after Adam and Eve disobeyed, somehow it enabled Satan to take appropriate shame, (in terms of modesty), and turn it into toxic shame, whereby he is doing everything he possibly can to try to convince us, often without us even realizing it, that we are as bad as he is.   

We are told in 2nd Timothy 2:26 that Satan works to trap us and take us captive to do his will. I believed core to his will is for us to believe that  we are bad in everyway, just like him. It can certainly be said that Satan did the stupidest thing in the history of time, by trying to overtake and kill the One who created him.   Evil often has the connotation of disfigurement and ugliness,  (as many antagonists in film and literature are often portrayed, such as Voldemort or others) because of its twisted nature.  Satan wants people to think they're ugly, just as he very likely is. Satan was justifiably kicked out of heaven for trying to kill God, therefore he wants us to feel like unredeemable outcasts, who are unacceptable, shamed, and eternally rejected, just as he is.

I will admit that this is sobering material. I just want to underscore how much we are up against in our fight against shame.  And, why it is so important to learn how to skillfully fight it.  I will talk more about how to fight shame in a future blogs.

The Good News…Rescued by Pure Goodness

Well, the stunning thing is that Jesus not only lived a sin free life, he lived a shame free life.  Shame again, acts like a parasite in us, in that it attaches to the sin in us and seeks to magnify and exaggerate it to the point that our sin is commingled with shame, and we feel like we can never ever be free from it.  Jesus, however, could rightly say about Satan in John 14:30 that “he has no hold on me,” or in another translation “he has nothing in me.” 

Because Jesus was free from sin, was perfectly good and pure, (and by definition had no “badness” or shame in him, which is part of what makes him truly God), Satan had no leverage. He could not exploit anything in Jesus to make him feel shame. What is even more stunning is that when Jesus, who was crucified naked between two thieves, where he was truly exposed, somehow had the internal strength to be able to scorn that shame (Hebrews 12:2) when shame would have certainly flooded in and overwhelmed any one of us. That is absolutely breathtaking. 

Goodness Restored in Us

Through the work of Jesus not only are our sins forgiven, we are positionally empowered to reject shame, to reject the lies that we are unloved are unworthy or stupid or worthless. Further, because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in us, who is pure goodness, our souls are infused with goodness.  That  is why I believe Paul can say in Romans 15:14 that: “I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness.” Imagine that, Paul, who earlier in that same book wrote that we: “all have sinned and fallen and sort of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) declares that we are full of goodness!

So dear brothers and sisters, through Jesus we can confidently state that as His children and brothers, that we are good in Him, because He is good, and He is in us. And because he is in us we are “positionally” free from shame and can legitimately reject Satan’s lies, and over time, truly rest in His eternal love. 

May God help you receive and stand in what is true from these words. May you be further and further equipped to reject shame and Satan's lies, and live in greater freedom from the Lord