GUILT TRAP

 If you live with toddlers or have one you may be able to relate to this. I cannot remember exactly how it happened but i remember my sister getting ready to go somewhere with one of my nieces, she carried a bag and my niece wanting to copy what she saw carried a bag too, she must have been around 2 years old then. The bag was too big and heavy for her but she insisted on carrying a bag like my sister and even bursted out in tears when we made several attempts to stop her. It was a very funny thing to watch, she couldn't even lift the bag from the floor, and was literally using all her strength to drag it. If we allowed her, she wouldn't mind dragging that bag on the road until she wore her self out.

By now, you may have gotten a clue on what i am aiming at. If not, let me give you another instance. Those who schooled in Nigeria can relate to this. Remember those days in secondary school when you were punished for making noise in class, the punishment could be a senior or teacher telling you to sit on the wall (lean on the wall, with your back against it and your knee bent in a sitting position with no chair or stool to support your behind), while they pile up books on your outstretched arms and you are to remain in that uncomfortable position with books on your arms for a while, maybe a long time. Imagine the sweating, discomfort and especially the pain. Oh, it happened to me once, i was begging for my life. 

As a believer in Christ, you have to be careful and be on alert to reject every burden that Christ has carried on your behalf, one of which i will focus on now is guilt. While in sin, you probably did whatever you did and may not have even felt guilty about it then but now that you've accepted Christ, the devil knows you now have a good heart. He knows you are tender hearted so he may try to bring up the past to stir up some guilt and then you begin to feel terrible, he may take it further by using the ignorance of a believer to cause oppression to them with reference to something that happened in the past. 

Have you read 2 corinthians 5 vs 17, it says ”Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.“ This means that there is no evidence of any wrong. You have a clean slate. In fact, if you ask God, he will tell you there’s no record of that offense and he can’t remember it. Remember the illustration i made earlier about my little niece, sometimes we want to carry what we should not carry and then end up wearing ourselves out. No sin is too much or gruesome for Christ to wash away or are you underestimating what Christ has done? All your sins have been forgiven, past, present and future.

Hebrews 8 vs 12 “For i will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will i remember no more”