Richard Roberts
Are you carrying around a burden of guilt that is weighing you down? God doesn’t want you to carry that baggage or feel guilty about it any longer. He wants you to be free!
I was scheduled to preach in a service one time and during praise and worship, before I was to speak, I carried several suitcases onto the platform. I did not say anything; I just carried those bags up there, one at a time. I could see everyone looking around, elbowing each other, and asking, “What’s he doing?”
When I was introduced as the speaker, I walked over and started taking all sorts of things out of those suitcases — things representing the past that people in the audience might have been hanging on to. Then we had a deliverance service. When the people responded and repented, those weights were broken off their lives. They received forgiveness and left that baggage behind!
It’s hard to get anywhere in life if you’re dragging a load of guilt with you wherever you go. There is a way to be free from that condemnation. King David found a way. In Psalm 51:2, he prayed to God, Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. There is a cleansing from guilt through genuine repentance. You don’t have to tell anyone else what happened or make a public announcement. It can be just between you and God. You can say, “Lord, I’m carrying this guilt over what has happened. I don’t know how to get it out of me. Father, I ask You to take it and forgive me.” I believe He’ll do it and help you leave that baggage behind, just as He says He will in 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
