Shame can be a pretty powerful tool.
It has a way of bringing old sins back to mind and making you wonder if what you did somehow disqualified you from coming to God. I know that feeling, because Satan has tried to use shame on me plenty of times too.
Yesterday, I got an email from someone who shared a long list of things they had done wrong. At the end of it, they were basically asking, “Could God still love someone like me? Can I still go to Him and pray?”
You could feel the weight of the shame in those questions.
As I thought about what to say, I kept coming back to how powerful the Word of God really is. This is the God who spoke the universe into existence. His Word is not weak, and His promises do not suddenly stop being true because our past feels especially ugly.
1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
That verse does not say God forgives us unless the sin is too big. It does not say He forgives us only after we have carried enough shame for it. It says that when we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive and cleanse us.
I think sometimes I can believe my shame more easily than I believe that promise. I can keep replaying what I did even after I have brought it to God, almost as if my guilt has more authority than His Word.
It doesn’t.
If you have confessed your sin to God and shame keeps telling you that you cannot come back to Him, go back to what He has already said. His forgiveness is greater than your shame, and His Word gets the final say.