When the Truth Hurts

A cold hug. Unresolved anger over a commitment I kept while my mom was in town led to a disappointing goodbye. It’s the last time I saw her, nine years ago. Three months later, I sat beside her bed reading the journal entry she penned after this December visit:

“Lord, with Shauna, it used to be what can Jesus do for you. Now, it’s what can Mary Kay do for you.”

The slap stung. Pursuing achievement and recognition in Mary Kay consumed me and affected those around me. The truth hurt. Not because her words were hurtful, but because they confronted me with truth I didn’t want to see.

Wracked with sobs, God gently whispered to my spirit: “Take the truth; leave the guilt and shame.” The heaviness lifted. The burden of sin vanished. Conviction remained, with forgiveness. A life lesson. A God lesson. I think it’s what Romans 8:1 means:

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

When God reveals sin in our lives, we take the conviction; we leave the condemnation.

How is that, especially when we continue to sin?

Through the body of Christ, we are delivered from the law – judgment, punishment, condemnation, and death – so that we can be productive for God, serving Him “in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:6). Yet, Paul explains in Romans 7:15-25, we all face the life-long dilemma of having the intellectual capacity to understand and yield in obedience to what is morally acceptable to God and to recognize and hate what is not, but our skin and bones – the earthly nature that resists God – is drawn off the path of righteousness to violate the very things He desires. We know and want to do what is good, but don’t, while doing the very evil we hope to avoid!

“Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Paul exclaims in verse twenty-four. Answering his own question, he says, “I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh that law of sin” (verse twenty-five).

Then he immediately assures us of no condemnation. Looking back on our trail of blood from Leviticus to the Cross, let’s put it all together:

We are born with a sin condition; we are unable to not sin.

Our sin separates us from God, exacting a penalty.

Blood must be shed.

Animal sacrifices offered by a high priest once satisfied the wrath of God, then Jesus, the final sacrifice, became the propitiation or satisfaction for our sin, becoming our eternal High Priest.

He died for our condition, the rebellious heart it creates, and the sins that result from that rebellion.

When He saves us, we are able to recognize what is righteous and good and hate what is evil, but because of our human flesh, we are still drawn away from righteousness to sin.

Because Jesus died for the condition into which we are born by no fault of our own, in Christ Jesus, when we sin, there is THEREFORE now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

We cannot, however, walk according to the flesh any longer, but must walk by the Spirit. A change in behavior is necessary.

Conviction should lead to alteration.

When I returned home from the funeral, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I changed. Mary Kay was no longer the priority in my life. God was. And family. I still worked my business, but it was no longer an idol.

When viewing inappropriate content on television, at the theater, or on the internet leaves us sullied with guilt and shame, take the conviction – the truth that what we’ve seen is wrong in the eyes of God – but leave the condemnation – the damnation we expect and want to put on ourselves.

When someone we love dies unsaved and we are crushed by the weight of feeling we should have done or said more, take the conviction – the truth that we must be bold in sharing the good news of what Jesus Christ has done for us – but leave the condemnation.

When we mess up for the umpteenth time and can’t see how it’s ever going to get better, take the conviction – the truth that what we’re doing is wrong and we must yield in obedience to what God desires for that area of our lives – but leave the condemnation.

Leave the hopelessness. The shame. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, yield in obedience to what God desires.

No condemnation. No penance. Just freedom.

Is there something the Lord is convicting you to change? See your guilt and shame nailed to the cross as you bow down and worship Him there. Take responsibility for making the changes He undoubtedly is urging you to make. By the power of the Holy Spirit, move forward, in obedience, lighter and freer for His work on the cross.

Thank you, Father, that in Christ Jesus we receive conviction and correction but still enjoy the easy yoke and light burden available to us in Him. Forgive our sins and help us yield ourselves in obedience to You as we become more wholly Yours today.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

Want the Perfect Scapegoat for Your Sin?

Salvation isn’t the ticket to the good life; it’s the ticket to eternal life. We are taken from a hopeless state of corruption to one acceptable before God by faith in Christ Jesus, “whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood” (Romans 3:25).

Used two other times in the New Testament (I John 2:2 and 4:10), the word propitiation refers to Jesus’ blood appeasing God, satisfying the penalty our sins deserve, and atoning for our wrongdoing. The same Greek root is used in Hebrews 9:5, but in English it refers to the mercy seat, which is “the cover of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, which was sprinkled with the blood of the expiatory victim on the annual day of atonement (this rite signifying that the life of the people, the loss of which they had merited by their sins, was offered to God in the blood as the life of the victim, and that God by this ceremony was appeased and their sins expiated)” (www.blueletterbible.org, Strong’s G2435, hilastērion).

In order to meet with God this one day a year, the high priest had to follow God’s exact instructions. If he passed the veil into the Holy of Holies any other time or any other way, he would die. After a detailed process of purification, the high priest sprinkled the blood of his own sin offering before the mercy seat to atone for himself, his family, and the Holy Place “because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, for all their sins; and so he shall do for the tabernacle of meeting which remains among them in the midst of their uncleanness” (Leviticus 16:16). He then repeated the process for the altar of sacrifice.

Next, he would he take from the Israelites two kids of goats as a sin offering and a ram as a burnt offering. Casting lots for the goats, one would be sacrificed and the other would be “presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, and to let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness” (Leviticus 16:10). He would “lay both hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness” (Leviticus 16:21-22).

Not only is Jesus the final sacrifice for our sin, doing away with the law, He is our scapegoat! Our sin was upon Him on the cross, and like the scapegoat, Jesus took it all away (I John 3:5). Not only that, but at the moment Jesus breathed His last, the veil of the temple was supernaturally “torn in two from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38). The most Holy Place is no longer a physical location accessible only to a high priest; through THE High Priest, Jesus, we have uninhibited access!

“Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:19-22).

And the temple? It is now the place where Jesus dwells in us! First Corinthians 6:9 asks, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” In fact, we “have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Thus, “what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’ Therefore ‘Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord almighty’” (2 Corinthians 6:16-18).

We still breathe the same air, drive the same streets, live in the same country, abide by the same legal system, are affected by the same politics and markets, are vulnerable to the same natural, political and health disasters, but WE are no longer the same. We must now think, believe, hope, talk, and live different. And that requires sacrifice of the New Testament kind.

Lord, thank You that Jesus is now our High Priest and in Him we are Your most Holy Place. Open the eyes of our understanding and strengthen us for the sacrifices You require of us now in order to live more wholly Yours today.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His