As a man thinks lesson #5 part 1

We are going to conclude our series this lesson on the proverb of Solomon when he said, "as a man thinks in his heart so is he." There is no question that if a man thinks proper thoughts; it will show up in his life. We have been looking however at the reverse of this. What happens when even as a Christian you struggle with defeating thoughts? How do you overcome these struggles that keep you from living the life that God wants you to live?

One of the most important fights a Christian must win is the battle that goes on inside the heart or mind. We must see what God sees about us. If we are going to overcome fear, low self-esteem, a lifetime of feeling trapped, we must look at our lives through the lenses of God! Jesus said love your neighbors as yourself leaving us with the implication that Christians are to love themselves. The importance of doing this is the fact that according to Solomon what we think eventually displays itself in how we act!

What we want to conclude with this morning is a very challenging subject! This thought pattern is a very delicate subject because an unbalanced approach to it in either way leads to destruction. Yet, for many Christians this is a major mountain that they must move! This thought pattern that we are going to deal with often times results in many of the other problems. If you struggle with this in your life, you might as well struggle with fear, bitterness, and low self-esteem among others. The thought pattern we want to deal with is the idea that you are always guilty!(1)

Now, when dealing with guilt you are dealing with a complex problem because as I said earlier an unbalanced guilt complex is destructive!

Let me just say that there are three basic positions of guilt that every one of us will fall into on every subject we encounter! Only one position however is proper, biblical and healthy for our daily lives! We are going to touch on all three positions but deal mainly with the last one, which in my opinion is probably the hardest one for the sincere person to deal with!

1. NO GUILT! This is the person that basically can sin against God and not feel the slightest bit of guilt. These sins can range from sins such as "white lies", "stealing a pencil from work" all the way to murder and other horrific acts. This is a great problem today. These are the people that the Bible says their conscience is seared ! 1 Timothy 4:1,2. Rather than trying to live with a guilty conscience, they simply live with no conscience at all! This plays out in our lives, and we don't really want to be around people like this. They will say whatever they want, do whatever they want and not really care what other people think. They don't care if their "big sins" or even their intentionally rude comments hurt people! To be faithful to Christ, we must seek to be people whose consciences are bothered by wrongdoing!
2. Normal Guilt! Guilt is not bad! In fact, the feeling of normal guilt, basically where the conscience has been trained to observe what is right and wrong and lets us know when we've crossed the line, is a blessing from God! Romans 2:15. When we feel normal guilt it allows us to cease from an action that is wrong or compels us to do what is right. When we can possess a proper conscience we will be a people who use guilt as a part of life but just a part! It is necessary, but just a part! A wonderful example of such is John 8:9- the woman taken in adultery!
3. FALSE GUILT! This is kind of what we spoke about in the first part of this series, this is the guilt that comes to people for all sorts of reasons! This is the feeling inside that when I look at myself in the mirror every day all I see is a guilty person not worthy of any relationship with God or loved ones. How does this play out in our lives? Well, for starters this can be one of the greatest causes of depression. We are depressed about us because we claim to try but can never measure up. We become anxious people. We are always nervous and anxious about what others are going to see or say. We are critical people! We mentioned in the self-esteem lesson how people with a low view of themselves often are the most critical of others. Same is true with those who feel guilty all the time. The only way to feel anything positive is if everyone else can feel negative. This is the person who is