One Thing I Do
By Jeremy Glaze
I believe the most detrimental after-effect of sin is guilt and shame. In most cases, the burden of the guilt and shame outweighs and outlasts any practical consequence we have to bear. After everything is said and done, the debt has been paid, time served, justice given, relationship has been addressed, or all parties move on, the guilt and shame remain. I still struggle with the guilt of things I did 15 years ago. I am sure everyone involved has moved on, there are no consequences I’m still facing, everything has been restored, but I still tend to carry the guilt of my past.
In Philippians 3:13, Paul stated “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead”
Most of us are familiar with Paul. We can all agree he was a great man. He lead the first century Christians, traveled afar to bring the church to the known world, wrote half of the New Testament Bible. Paul seemed to have it all together. But still there is a reason he needed to say “you know, there is this one thing I am doing, I am forgetting the past”.
We do not know all the details of Paul’s past, but we do know that before his conversion, his goal was to persecute Christians and destroy the church (Acts 8:3). There is one incident that we know about that must have caused Paul a great amount of guilt and shame. Stephen was captured for preaching Jesus, dragged outside the city, and stoned to death. These men gave their jackets to Paul (at the time his name was Saul) to hold while they threw the stones at Stephen. Paul approved and supported the murder of Stephen, just because he was spreading the Gospel. After they killed Stephen, Saul (Paul) went from door to door dragging Christians out of their homes and throwing them in prison. (Acts 7:57 – 8:3)
Now imagine Paul a few years later. He has changed. He has been spoken to by Jesus Himself, converted, and called to spread the exact same message that he had Stephen killed for spreading. He was basically now representing everything that Stephen was murdered for. So when Paul, now an apostle, thought back to standing their watching in agreement as his guys stoned Stephen to death, I cannot imagine the guilt he felt. Can you imagine the shame that stirred up in Paul when He was talking about Jesus and somebody said “hey, didn’t you have a guy killed for talking about the same thing that you are now talking about?” So Paul knew about guilt and shame.
But Paul also had an understanding of Jesus and the redemption that occurred on the Cross. Paul realized that Jesus took these sins upon himself and died to pay for these sins. Jesus took the blame for everything Paul did, even the murder of Stephen. So he could move on, forget the past, and press forward to what lies ahead. Jesus paid it all. Paul’s sins, my sins, and your sins. So why do we still carry the burden of a debt that has already been paid for?
I am not trying to diminish the wrong I have done, or the wrong you may have done. That is not it at all. I am trying to express the power of the amazing love and mercy that God showed to us on that day at the Cross of Jesus.
As Jason stated in the previous post, a sacrifice was made, blood was spilled, and God covered our shame.
Let’s put the past behind us, and reach forward to what lies ahead.
