Is there such thing as a healthy sense of guilt - when is it right, and when is it destructive?
Another question asked to John MacArthur
Yes there is - that's like asking if there's such a thing as healthy pain.
All pain is good - its good in this sense (we'll say, I'm not that hot on it) because it tells you that your body has a problem.
There is a disease that people have where they don't feel pain, and therefore cannot seek a remedy for it. In the same way when it comes to spiritual life and the area of the soul. The soul needs to know when its sick.
When I sin, I want the chimes to go off!
When we sin, we feel guilty, that's grace.
Now if you still feel guilty after confessing your sin and God has forgiven you
1 John 1:9 you've moved from real guilt to psychological guilt.
You need to forgive yourself, otherwise that's destructive.
And if you won't forgive yourself, you're better than God and you have a god complex.
Because God forgave you Psalm 103:12 and buried them in the depths of the sea and remembers them no more.
If God has forgotten my sin, I'm sure not going to let myself get bothered by them.
Real guilt is what I should feel - Psalm 51 - God wants a broken and contrite heart, but once sin is taken care of, God does not want us to walk around with needless psychological guilt.
Another question asked to John MacArthur
Yes there is - that's like asking if there's such a thing as healthy pain.
All pain is good - its good in this sense (we'll say, I'm not that hot on it) because it tells you that your body has a problem.
There is a disease that people have where they don't feel pain, and therefore cannot seek a remedy for it. In the same way when it comes to spiritual life and the area of the soul. The soul needs to know when its sick.
When I sin, I want the chimes to go off!
When we sin, we feel guilty, that's grace.
Now if you still feel guilty after confessing your sin and God has forgiven you
1 John 1:9 you've moved from real guilt to psychological guilt.
You need to forgive yourself, otherwise that's destructive.
And if you won't forgive yourself, you're better than God and you have a god complex.
Because God forgave you Psalm 103:12 and buried them in the depths of the sea and remembers them no more.
If God has forgotten my sin, I'm sure not going to let myself get bothered by them.
Real guilt is what I should feel - Psalm 51 - God wants a broken and contrite heart, but once sin is taken care of, God does not want us to walk around with needless psychological guilt.
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