WRITTEN BY MICHELE HANSEN
“I have stored up Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.” (Psalm 119:11)
I feel the need to shine a light into the midst of a nasty, dark, and icky soul-killing tactic of the Devil. That ick is the slimy reality of shame. A slick and potent weapon the enemy uses to keep believers trapped in patterns of self-depreciating behaviors and ultimately damage the testimony of the Bride. Shame is like a fungus that grows in the dark and it will ruin our soul. Gotta get some Holy Ghost illumination on it and watch it shrivel up until it is no longer an issue.
The light I’m talking about isn’t your garden-variety flashlight or lamp in the corner…no, I’m talking about the light of the gospel. The truth (light) of Christ is the cure for the fungus of shame. Shame comes at us from unsuspecting places. We may not even realize that what we have been dealing with our whole lives has a name …shame.
Let me tell you about a friend of mine. He dealt with shame. It came at Him from all sides. Through His determination not to allow shame to dominate His life, He lived out loud and showed everyone who would pay attention how to live without the cancerous effects of shame.
…of course, it’s Jesus.
Here’s the part that has recently rocked my understanding…again. Hebrews 12:2 says, “…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” At different times in my life, I have focused on different aspects of this verse. It’s so loaded with goodies you can’t consume it in one sitting… (spoiler…all scripture is that way).
Anyway, this time, I was caught by the twinkling energy of the word “scorn.” I had never really thought about it. Had to look it up. It means “feel or express contempt or derision for”. So, what does it mean that Jesus endured the cross, scorning the shame?
It literally means that He rejected the shame of the cross.
As a means of humiliation and torture, the cross was meant to shame those executed by it. Jesus had no sin of His own to be ashamed about, so He scorned the shame…He was not brought under the power of shame. But as the sacrifice for humanity’s sin, He took on our sin, shame, and guilt and defeated the power of it when He was resurrected by God the
Father and sat down at His right hand. Not only did He scorn shame, but He defeated the power of it in the believer’s life securing forever our righteousness in Him.
Told you it was good!
Ok. Transparency time. Recently, I have discovered a truth about myself, and it kinda knocked my socks off. There are a lot of things in my life that I had been fighting and persistent patterns of thinking that I wasn’t seeing much deliverance from. I have no idea when the truth bomb exploded in my soul, but when it did, it took me by surprise.
(Don’t ever think that you can arrive at perfection’s doorstep with your baggage, even if it’s only your “carry-on”.)
What it meant for me was looking at things in my life, inside of me, that were not being resolved and realizing I was trying to apply truth in the wrong way. Like putting a band-aid on your forehead for a headache. It’s the right area, wrong treatment.
The process of healing from shame is the same as for any other soul wound: realize it, admit it and agree with God that it’s there, ask Him to show me my part, and allow God to show me what the truth is about the situation that is causing the shame.
The thing about shame that I am learning to do, is what Jesus did. He scorned it. He rejected it. It didn’t find a way into Him because He slammed the door in its face. The Lord shines His truth light on the situation, and now I’m learning to slam the door, too, so to speak.
We have to face it. We have to look it in the eyeball and drag it kicking and screaming into the light of the One who died to deliver us from it. It can be scary. It can be a fight. But there is freedom and deliverance on the other side.
Jesus took on and faced His very own creation’s sin and defeated it. He is at the right hand of the Father. Holy Spirit is here with us, ready to walk us through the tough stuff to the place where victory lives. We are delivered from the power of guilt and shame and robed in the righteousness of Christ. As we receive healing from past hurts, we gain courage to walk more uprightly. We gain confidence to be the expression of Christ’s righteous Bride. We are clothed in His righteousness, bright and clean.
