Guilt and Forgiveness

Hi there, and thanks for joining me for today's encouragement from the Our Daily Bread devotional. I'm Sheridan Voisey, and I've titled our reading today, Guilt and Forgiveness. In his book Human Universals, anthropologist Donald Brown lists more than 400 behaviors that he considers common across humanity.

He includes such things as toys, jokes, dances and proverbs, weariness of snakes and tying things with string. Likewise, he believes all cultures have concepts of right and wrong, where generosity is praised, promises are valued, and things like meanness and murder understood to be wrong. We all have a sense of conscience, wherever we're from. The Apostle Paul made a similar point many centuries ago. While God gave the Jewish people the Ten Commandments to clarify right from wrong, Paul noted in Romans chapter 2 that since Gentiles could do right by obeying their conscience, God's laws were evidently written on their hearts. But that didn't mean people always did what was right. The Gentiles rebelled against their conscience.

The Jews broke the law, leaving both guilty. But through faith in Jesus, God removes the death penalty from all our rule-breaking. Since God created all humans with a sense of right and wrong, each of us will likely feel some guilt over a bad thing we've done or a good thing we've failed to do. When we confess those sins, God wipes away the guilt like a whiteboard wiped clean.

All we have to do is ask Him. Whoever we are, wherever we're from. Today's scripture reading is from Romans chapter 2 verses 12 to 16. All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.

They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them. This will take place on the day when God judges people's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my Gospel declares. Let's pray. Jesus, I have failed to do right and succeeded in doing wrong. Would you please bring to my mind now everything that you would like me to repent of? Lord, I ask for forgiveness for all of those things, and thank you for dying my death so that I don't have to. All my guilt is gone, and I walk today fully forgiven. It's in your name that I pray gratefully. Amen. Today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.