THESE SCARS
They Still Speak
The Silent Language of Living Wounded
Wherever you are today, your limitations, your walls, your scars are before God’s eyes.
September 7th, 2022
PLEA BARGAINER
Guilt can have the same scarring effect as shame. Guilt is murderous and it refuses to let go. The epic amount of time served on a guilty charge is astronomical, and some never are freed from the prisons which hold them captive while serving that time. Guilt scars mankind from the inside out; its tentacles wrapping themselves around the heart, soul, spirit and mind within, while deadening the eyes, dashing the smile, and quite often, tattooing its artwork of sadness and anger, resentment and loss.
Guilt comes in many voices, but never in the voice of the enemy. It will always be disguised and will mimic or pantomime false realities and promises. The enemy will taunt you, but he will never outright tell you the consequences of the actions with which he flatters you. He will hook and drag you, and when you are stuck and sunk, he will not come by as a rescuer, but instead, as a reminder of how you failed and what you forfeited. He brazenly will flaunt worldly trappings in front of you, but he will not bail you out when the rubber meets the road. Guilt carries with it so many weapons, each one designed to annihilate—not the enemy, but you and your worth and your future and your integrity.
When you stand trial for your ‘Guilty Charge’, you won’t stand alone. You will either stand with the enemy, who will berate and condemn you in your head and in your ear about all the mistakes you made and what those consequences are. He will coquettishly whisper to you that you’re not guilty, while he pokes at you in fun in your chest to antagonize you with just how guilty you truly are. He will not stand as a witness for you, nor stand with you, and the only way you may know he is present, is by his taunting and the accusations poised against you. You will stand totally alone, and feel alone, with a big ‘G’ on your chest—just to remind you.
What we are never told when we face trials and condemnations of many kinds is how much the Savior longs to set us free, internally. If you choose to forbid the enemy into your proceeding, Jesus will come in and sit with you. He will witness for you and stand on your behalf. He sits as Judge and Juror over your life-trial, and He is so compassionate, so ‘for you, not against you’, that you aren’t sentenced to a life sentence, or worse yet, a death sentence, when you allow Him into the courtroom of your heart. That’s because He has already set you free. You will be convicted, but you will be convicted, by yourself, from within, that your behavior must change, and you must move in a different direction, with the Holy Spirit as your Guide. In this trial, you will find yourself whispering ‘Guilty’, and witnessing the Judge and Jury emphatically crying a verdict, ‘Not Guilty’, as your case is closed, and you are free to go.
Make sure when you depart this time, that you take Him with you, wherever you go. He will save you from yourself, and from the enemy, and His forgiveness toward you, comes with only one string attached: to walk in the opposite direction of where you were headed before.
Even guilt can be remanded. Wounds can heal. But scars will never totally fade.
See, Jesus stood on trial on our behalf and accepted our guilty plea. He never sinned one moment of His life here on earth. He knows sin, but only because it separated Him from His Father at the cross. His Father literally turned His back on His Son, because an eternal, holy, saving God cannot look upon sin and also judge it at the same time without atonement. Jesus, the perfect Lamb, the Son of God, stood in my place at the Cross, and took not only my shame but my guilt also upon Himself, and paid my penalty, my death sentence, so I could be set free. So you would no longer face a ‘Guilty Charge’. It cost everything, at the Cross, and we gained everything, at the Cross. Even freedom. Even eternity.
John 3:16, ‘For here is the way God so loved the world—He gave His only, unique Son as a gift. So now everyone who believes in Him will never perish but experience everlasting life.’ (TPT)
Isaiah 49:16, ‘”Can’t you see? I have carved your name on the palms of My hands! Your walls are always my concern.”’
