Breaking Free From the Power of Shame

Scriptures: Romans 10:11, 1 Peter 2:6

The Struggle with Shame

Shame. That’s a word we’re all too familiar with.

I admit that I still struggle with shame. Shame from things that were done to me at an early age, shame from my sins of the past and present, shame from the things I didn’t do that I know I should have done. Shame is a powerful emotion. It has the power to strip us of all hope and make us believe that our sins are too great to be forgiven. It leaves us in great despair, wondering if God can ever use us again. It causes us to walk into a room and assume that everyone is talking about us. Shame causes us to be disgusted with ourselves, tempting us to forfeit our future.

I know this feeling all too well. I wish my slate was clean and I had no sin to regret, but that’s not the case for me.

For most of my life, I have found myself looking for solutions to cover the inner pain I was experiencing. Unfortunately, in my attempt to self-medicate, I made things worse and fed the monster I now call shame. Over time the monster grew bigger and stronger, and it became untamable. This monster controlled my emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Its power seemed to be unmatched, and I soon found myself surrendering to its call. Shame became like a best friend who shows up unexpectedly and never leaves. We became inseparable. This monster still wakes me up in the middle of the night to taunt me, and shows up from time to time to remind me that it will never leave me nor forsake me. It’s exhausting.

I’m not talking about the kind of a shame that makes you feel bad when you overeat or when you’ve binged on social media for hours. I am talking about the type of shame that paralyzes you. The kind of shame that reminds you over and over that you failed. Shame that has you running when no one is chasing.

It’s related to a broken relationship. A divorce. A bad habit. A failed career or a sinful decision.

Shame has no mercy or grace for its victims. It finds the weak and wounded and attaches itself to us like a blood-sucking leech.  It attaches itself to the barren woman who longs to have children, to the parent with a wayward child, to the person with the pornography addiction, and to the one with a painful past.  Shame has no concern for the destruction it leaves behind.

Be encouraged, though! We can have freedom from the grip of shame. During this week, we’ll look at the story of David as an example of how to break free from shame through confession, repentance, and enjoying God’s forgiveness.

Scriptures: Genesis 2:25, Genesis 3:1-10, Romans 7:15-24

Naked and Not Ashamed

There was a time long ago when shame didn’t exist, and everything was perfect—no guilt or embarrassment. But then sin entered and brought shame along with it.

Genesis 2:25 says, “and the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed.” What’s the point here? The Bible is communicating that even in their most vulnerable state—being naked—Adam and Eve felt no shame. They had nothing to hide from God or one another, no reason to be covered up. They walked with God and each other with utter confidence and no fear about being found out. They were pure, transparent, and naked.

The word naked means more than just nudity. It means that they were totally open and exposed before God and man. They had no sin and nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing mentally, physically, or emotionally. There was pure intimacy.

But it didn’t last long. By chapter 3 we see this bond of intimacy destroyed because of sin. Adam and Eve disobeyed God, bringing sin into the world. That sin shattered the intimacy Adam and Eve had between each other, but most importantly, with God. In Genesis 2, we saw that they were without shame and had nothing to hide. In chapter 3 they are now ashamed, hiding from God, and covering up.

Ashamed and afraid they hid from God. But there is something we can’t miss in Genesis 3:8. Although their sin caused them to feel shame and want to hide, God didn’t hide from them. In fact, in this text, His personal name is used, Lord God. This is God’s personal name that shows His intimate relationship with His people. Yes, their relationship would soon be distorted because of the sin that entered, but God didn’t run and hide from them. What Adam and Eve experienced is what humanity will experience until Christ comes back. Any time sin enters the picture of our lives, shame is a close cousin who comes along with it. It reminds us that we failed and we should hide and cover ourselves just like Adam and Eve did. It’s a natural response to our sin. Welcome to the life long battle. But there is hope.

You are not some sort of freak or failure as a Christian because you still battle sin. As Paul outlines in Romans 7, there will be a war within us that we all fight. For some it will be sexual immorality and impurity that we struggle with. For others it may be envy, jealousy, arrogance, pride, or idolatry. It might be gossip or people-pleasing or an obsession with the opinion of others. No matter what it is, we will all have a battle. And Satan’s goal is to condemn and shame us when we fail.

Another name for Satan is Accuser, and that’s exactly what he does: he accuses the children of God. He attempts to condemn us and make us think we’re worthless. He reminds us of our past and present sins, hoping it will leave us paralyzed and drowning in our shame. The enemy is an accuser and condemner, but we don’t have to submit to his power. Shame doesn’t have to win, and you don’t have to hide. You can have victory!

Scriptures: Psalms 32:1-11, 2 Samuel 12:1-15

Breaking Shame’s Power

There is a part that Christ plays, and there is a part you play in breaking shame’s power.  Get a shovel, and let’s start digging. We’ll dig deep and search in your soul for the very things you have been covering and hiding. The things that you have done that no one knows about. We are going to bring them all out to the light. You have to be willing to face it in order to defeat it. The enemy wins his battle in the dark, and we win ours in the light. 

Forgiveness and grace await you on the other side of confession. I know you’re probably tired of carrying this, but rest is on the other side of confession. And that’s the first step, confession.

Acknowledgement will help you live freely in the present and offer hope for the future.  The past is something the enemy will use consistently and aggressively to keep you spiritually paralyzed.  He knows that if he can keep you living in shame, then you won’t move into a life of freedom.  He will remind you of the things you did wrong or the wrong things that were done to you.  He wants you to feel like you are not worthy.  He wants you to think that forgiveness is impossible for you. 

Let’s take a look at the life of David.  He was a man after God’s own heart, yet he knew shame very well.  

David knew what it meant to sin and attempt to cover it up.  It began when he saw Bathsheba and took her for the night.  She was another man’s wife, but he misused his authority to take advantage of her, committed adultery, and impregnated her. 

A one-night stand now turned into a lifetime of turmoil.  Would he no longer be King if people found out?  If he remained King, would people disrespect him?  Would he lose the image he carefully protected? 

So, what does he do?  Instead of confessing his sin and repenting, he comes up with a horrible plan.  Sin and shame go hand in hand, and so do dumb and dumber.  That is what sin does.  It makes us irrational!  David wasn’t logical.  He wasn’t thinking straight.  His decision-making skills were now distorted.  So he went to extreme measures.  He took Bathsheba’s husband and had him killed, hoping that the deep dark secret would never get out. 

For shame to lose its power, you have to acknowledge the very things that’s producing it.  If shame is the fruit of my sin, then I have to get to the root, so it stops producing fruit.  This is incredibly hard but necessary to move forward.  I may not like it, but I have to acknowledge the past and accept that it happened. 

In Psalm 32, this is precisely what David does when he finally begins his path to freedom.  He didn’t point the finger at others for his failures.  Instead, he owns it!  David committed adultery and then murder to cover it up.  This led to emotional, physical, and spiritual starvation.  He became weak and feeble in every area of his life because he was exhausted from hiding.  As he looked back at his sin, he acknowledged that the misery he was experiencing was connected to the sin he was covering.  He finally gave up and uncovered it.

Scriptures: Psalms 32:3-5, Hebrews 12:3-13

Confession Releases Shame

David’s next step was confession. You can acknowledge something without confessing it.  This is where we get into habitual sin.  We can admit it but not uproot it.  I can walk by and stare at the weeds in my yard and acknowledge they are there, but they will continue to grow until I do something about them. 

Confessing is doing something about our sin, so shame doesn’t continue to grow. The word confess means to agree with God that we missed the mark.  We have sinned and fallen short. The enemy loves to fight in the dark; that is his battleground. We must bring our deepest secrets into the light. That’s God’s battleground, and that’s where the enemy loses his power. Confessing brings our sin out of the darkness and into the light, where we’re able to win our spiritual fights.  The dark is the enemy’s territory; he loses his power in the light.

Acknowledgement and confession are where the Accuser begins to lose the battle, because as we move forward to bring this out to the light, he begins to lose grip.  The worst thing to do is to conceal the things that are causing shame.  If we cover it, then all we are doing is pouring soil on the root, which will eventually grow through.  You can’t just trim a weed or pour dirt over it and expect it not to grow; you have to pull it out by its root. Confession is the uprooting of the weed.  When confession happens, the source of shame loses its power. 

David continues in Psalm 32 and gives us a great picture of what happens when we don’t confess, “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.” He knew what it felt like to be guilty.  He knew what it felt like to fall short.  He was speaking about something that happened in the past, so he spoke from experience about what it’s like to sin and then try to cover it up.  Was he ashamed, and that’s what led to him covering?  I am sure he was!

He goes on to say that God’s hand was heavy upon him day and night.  Think about what he was saying.  All day long, he felt the weight of covering his sin.  He was depleted emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  He says that his strength was dried up like in the heat of the summer.

When we hide and conceal, not only does it produce unwanted shame, but even worse, it causes God to press down on our hearts.  This leads us into misery until we come clean.  

But there’s something important that needs to be said here. It is good that God’s hand is heavy on us while we are living in unconfessed sin. Because you are His child, God’s grace will not allow you to stay in hiding.  God’s not out to get you in trouble; the pressure you feel from his hand is like the loving discipline of a Father correcting his child, so that the child can thrive and live a fruitful life! Think about that.  God will not let you sin in peace.

Scriptures: Psalms 32:3-7, Galatians 1:10

Confession Brings Freedom

It’s incredible how much freedom comes with confession. David confesses his sin, then says, “and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.” What a powerful statement. An adulterer and a murder asked for forgiveness, and he received it. Just like that!

This word forgiveness means that your sin is completely cancelled. God is not going to hold it against you or hang it over your head. If I can be honest with you, others might. People will see you and identify you with your sin. You may lose some friends and be judged by others. But, who cares! They don’t have the power to choose your future. They don’t have the power to determine how God will use you, nor does God need their permission. God doesn’t need the approval of man with who, when, and where He accomplishes his purposes. It’s His decision. So, lift your head up high and don’t live in shame.

If the Creator of the universe says you are forgiven, then the opinions of other people are simply that—their opinions. And those opinions don’t hold up in God’s court.

David acknowledged his sin, confessed it, and received forgiveness, and the same can happen for you. But you must take these steps. Once sin is brought into the light, no matter what it is, you no longer feel like you have to hide or try to cover it.  You no longer feel like a fraud who’s afraid of being found out.  But instead, you can walk in complete freedom now that the Creator of the Universe has forgiven you.  You no longer have to hang your head in shame and avoid eye contact.  Now you can look people straight in the eyes, knowing they can’t accuse you of anything God has pardoned you from. 

David goes from talking about the misery he felt from hiding his sin in verses 3 and 4 to celebrating the freedom he now has in verse 7.  Can you imagine how he must have felt covering his sin because of the shame that it brought and would continue to carry?  He hid at all costs, then confessed and found freedom.  He was so free that it seemed as if he didn’t care what others had to say about him.  He goes from hiding from God to hiding in God.

So, in other words, he is saying, for all of you who want to judge, ridicule, and shame me, if you are wondering where I am, I am hiding in God.  If you’re going to get to me, you have to go through Him to find me.  If you want me, you will have to go through my Father! 

What a moment!  What confidence! What if we lived that way?  Often, we cover our stuff because we are so afraid of what people will think about us.  We are so fearful of the shame that it’s going to produce that we hide it and shame ourselves.  Imagine what our lives would look like if we stopped being enslaved to man’s opinions and started walking in the freedom of Christ.

Scriptures: Psalms 103:1-22, Romans 8:1-3

His Message: No Condemnation

It’s easier said than done, isn’t it? We love to carry the burden of the things God has released us from. We don’t often know how to live in freedom, and being enslaved to shame sometimes seems easier than walking in forgiveness.

We can see this in the story of the Israelites in Exodus. God performed a series of unbelievable miracles, culminating in the literal parting of a sea, to free his people from slavery and oppression at the hands of the world’s greatest super-power. Until the cross, it was the greatest act of salvation in history. But as soon as they got out of slavery, the people started grumbling. First, they got thirsty, and complained to Moses. Then, they got hungry, and look at what they said:

The Israelites said to (Moses and Aaron), “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted. Instead, you brought us into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of hunger! (Exodus 16:3)

Are you kidding me? God just parted the Red Sea and drowned the strongest army in the world, and they thought he couldn’t give them some lunch? But it proves the point, doesn’t it? Sometimes it feels easier to stay in slavery than to walk in freedom.

This is why believing that God’s Word is true is vital to defeating the enemy’s allegations.  The only way you can defeat lies is with the truth.  Many Christians know about forgiveness, but have a problem truly accepting it.

Do you believe that He will remember your sins no more as promised in Hebrews? 

Do you believe that as far as the east is to the west that he will remember your sins no more, as stated in Psalm 103? 

Do you believe that while you were still a sinner, Christ died for you, as Paul says in Romans 5?

These are powerful truths that are needed to defeat the lies.  Imagine if you walked in these truths and if you allowed these passages to affect your behavior.  You would live as a victor and not a victim.  But this is a great mystery.  Why do Christians believe the whispers of a lie more than we do the roars of the truth?  We don’t accept the forgiveness we have been given.  We would rather wallow in shame and guilt because we think, in the depth of our souls, that’s what we deserve. 

Romans 8 is about emancipation. In it, we are told that God frees us to be his sons and daughters. We are no longer condemned by sin but redeemed through Christ. We experience emancipation. We also see the whole creation will be set free, and that this freedom is eternal, and God’s love for us is unshakable. When we are set free by God, we are loved with an unchangeable love that keeps us free no matter what struggle we face. 

But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Despite God’s love, we often feel trapped. We are burdened by worry, the weight of our sins, doubt, our circumstances, and more. When we cling to the burden, we lose sight of the freedom God gives us through Christ. We believe what shame says about us more than what the God has to say about us. It’s a cycle that’s hard to defeat.

The great news is that in our weakness and failure to believe that He has forgiven us and washed us from our shame, the truth still remains. We are washed new because of Christ. Our lack of belief in being forgiven doesn’t make us any less forgiven. It may make us bound to disbelief, but not to unforgiveness. God already took care of that.

Scriptures: 1 John 1:9, Romans 4:6-8

He Covers Your Shame

You have no reason to be ashamed.  Christ has covered it all for you! Once Adam and Eve sinned, shame entered the scene. Their eyes were open and they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings to cover their shame (Genesis 3:7). But this was man’s attempt at covering, and it wouldn’t be sufficient. In fact, man’s attempt never is.

In Genesis 3:21, you see God graciously provide for humanity’s need in a way that Adam and Eve couldn’t do. God clothes them not with fig leaves but with animal skins. This was the first animal sacrifice that would be the anticipation of the Old Testament sacrificial system. This was a Gospel foreshadow of what was to come—sin being covered by the perfect sacrificial Lamb, Jesus. Christian, what a picture for us. We are covered not by our attempts but by God’s grace!

So, to the one who can relate to the struggle between flesh and Spirit and cannot seem to get it right, and to the one who is addicted to sin, and to the one beating himself up because of the same failures over and over again, there is excellent news for you! Your sin is not your identity; the work of Christ is! We should take a praise break right here and give Him a “Thank You” and “Hallelujah.”  This is a Selah moment.  It seems too good to be true! 

A shame-free life is hard to grasp, isn’t it?  That is because we live in a world that continually wants to shame us.  We shame each other in church.  We shame each other on social media.  We shame each other in sports.  We shame each other in school.  We love to capitalize on each other’s failures.  And so, it’s hard to grasp the truth while the world is shaming you and while you are shaming yourself.

You Can Do This

Are you ready? You can do this! Acknowledge. Confess. Be forgiven. And come out from hiding. You don’t have to make a public confession or post on social media. But I want to encourage you to start by acknowledging the very thing that is producing that shame. Get a journal and confess it to the Lord. He can handle whatever you have to bring to Him. And if it makes it any easier for you, He already knows about it. 

After you have confessed it, know that He has forgiven you of it; you must believe that. I would also encourage you to find a trusted friend to confess to. I promise you, there is freedom and rest on the other side of this.