All this is well and good. But how do we move beyond cognitively getting our minds around this (which for some of us is hard enough) but to actually inhabit this as reality, as the most true thing in the universe (which it is)?
A couple of thoughts:
1. The Spirit of God is not the Spirit of shame and guilt. God's Spirit is always the Spirit of faith, hope, and love who leads us into faith, hope, and love--even and especialy when disciplining us. This is foundational for how we relate to the voices in our heads.
2. The Spirit does bring conviction. Sometimes in our internal experience, it's hard to know if what we're feeling is genuine conviction or false shame and guilt.
If we've sinned, it is appropriate to feel guilt and shame--we are guilty and we have something to be ashamed of! The world in many ways would be a much worse place if no one ever experienced guilt or shame.
But the Spirit's goal in bringing conviction is always to lead us to repentance. The goal of the Spirit's "no" to us is to bring us to the "yes" of re-connection with God.
Therefore, if we have repented of our sin and the feelings of guilt or shame still linger, it's not the voice of the Lord we're hearing any longer. It may have been initially, but that work is done. We can confidently war against the guilt and shame at work in us after we've repented. Post-repentance, those voices (whether they were true convictionn initially or not) are not the servants of the Lord.
3. The process of forgiving ourselves (i.e. dealing with our guilt) is just that--a process. There have been times when I've been so angry with someone that I've needed God to help me to forgive them just 500 times that day. And by his grace, tomorrow it'll just be 450 times.
Similarly with us. Embracing forgiveness offered to us by the Father for ourselves might require that we fight for it, work for it, and remind ourselves 500 times today that we are forgiven. By God's grace, perhaps tomorrow it'll just be 450 times.
4. If guilt is focused on the past, shame is often focused on our present and future. Am I man or woman enough to deal with the present or future challenges? Do I have anything in me that is valuable or worthwhile?
The gospel says both "no" and "yes" to this question.
First, the no. In and of ourselves, we cannot do what is required of us, least of all what is required of us by God. Our flesh and our gifts and abilities, no matter how well-developed or disciplined or cultivated, cannot do the work required by God.
But yes, by God's grace, we can do the work that he has prepared in advance for us to do because it is not just us doing it. Paul is adamant throughout the NT that it is God's grace working through him, the Spirit working in him, God at work in him.
It is this fresh inhabiting, indwelling of God that empowers us, enables us to rise to the challenges of our lives. We live out of the new name he has given us, and in that, we are confident to move ahead.
5. We need community to speak all this back to us, because we will forget it.
If we have not spoken the gospel of grace, forgiveness, new name, the Spirit's work in us, to one another, we have failed to be the community and family of God that he has called us to be.
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