Gutsy Guilt

In our women’s study last Wednesday, we discussed the hope, assurance, and confidence we have in this life because of our justification—that once and for all transaction (double imputation!) whereby our sins are put on Christ and His righteousness is apportioned to us by faith and we are born again! Passing from death to life, darkness to light—God justifies us once and forever, for always. And nothing—not angels or demons, anything in Heaven above or on the earth beneath, nothing can separate us from the love of God our Father. We are justified.

‘Course, the problem comes when we struggle with sin (again); we are lukewarm or even altogether apathetic to the things of God and even God Himself (again); we “feel” distant from God, etc. etc. What do we do, then? In those dark moments when we are tempted to doubt?

Well … I tried in our women’s study to give some encouragement and helpful ideas, but it took like a zillion words, way too much time, and I’m not sure it was even all that helpful. But today? I was rereading John Piper’s When the Darkness Will Not Lift—Doing What We Can While We Wait for God-and Joy and in his inimitable way, he captures what I WISH I had said in TWO LITTLE WORDS:

“Gutsy guilt means learning to live on the rock-solid truth of what happened for us when Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again from the dead. It means realizing that in this life we will always be sinful and imperfect. Therefore in ourselves we will always be guilty. This will prove emotionally devastating if we do not discover the reality of justification by faith, that is, the secret of gutsy guilt. This is not the only weapon with which we fight for joy in the darkness of discouragement, but it is one of the most foundational and the most important.”

Mmmmmmmmm. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

(Oh, and this is a great, TINY little book that I strongly recommend. One of the next sections is entitled, “Confusing Justification and Sanctification Will Kill Joy”. So again, I say, “Yes! Yes! A Thousand times yes!”)

Off into our Saturday now—

Blessings to you and yours,
Tara B.