The Difference Between Guilt and Shame

Hi Everyone,

A lot of people have confusion about the difference between guilt and shame.

Guilt says:

I have sinned
I did wrong
What I did was bad
I made a mistake

In GUILT our SIN is the wrong--and hopefully eventually in our lives the GUILT OF OUR SIN is going to be used by the Holy Spirit to convict us and to bring us to repentance before the Lord about it.

Shame says:
I am my sin
Something is wrong with me
I am a bad person/ I am the worst person in the world
I AM a mistake

Shame creates a sense of pride and self-pity in us. The focus is not on our sin, recognizing when we fall short of God's standards. Rather the focus is on us, and, we, in our pain, come to the conclusion that we ARE our sin, or that we ARE our false opinion of what either we ourselves think, or an opinion of what someone else has said we are.

Sometimes I think shame can keep someone from wanting to come to Christ----because they can come to believe it is impossible for Him to have ever died for them.

Not thoughts original completely to me--others have said these things.

You seem it was my shame that kept me from trusting Christ....that is one huge thing I have figured out. I'll never for get the night in Chicago that I saw this verse on the Pacific Garden Mission wall

Romans 3:22-23 "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Sometimes we forget about verse 22--I had NEVER seen that like that before---and began to think, "You mean maybe I am NOT any different than anyone else???" The thought was quite revolutionary for someone that had always thought they were the worst sinner on the planet! That night was March 13 2010.

Isaiah 53:1-6 "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all."