It was a setup.
My New Testament professor confessed to it after the laughter died down. “One student falls for that every year!” he said, clearly satisfied that I’d taken the bait.
I don’t even remember the question. It was something about how the writers of the Old and New Testaments were inspired. Did they hear God’s voice? Did they sit with pen in hand as the Holy Spirit dictated to them?
While I don’t remember the exact question, I remember all too well how I felt as everyone around me laughed. I pretended to laugh, too, but the smile went no deeper than my face. Inside I felt a familiar desire to crawl into a corner by myself: I felt ashamed. And shame can kill your spirit.
Guilt tells us that we’ve done something wrong; shame tells us that we are something wrong. If we’ve done something wrong, we can try to make it right, but what do we do if we feel at our very core that we are wrong?
The more I study and apply the Word of God to my life, the more clearly I see—from Genesis to Revelation—that God’s antidote to shame is His love. We see God administer this antidote from the moment Adam and Eve fell from grace and shame entered the world, through the ages, up to the Lamb of God on Golgotha’s brutal stage crying, “It is finished.”
Shame tells us we are worthless. Christ says, “I have made you worthy.”
Shame tells us we don’t belong. Christ says, “You are Mine.”
Shame tells us we are dirty. Christ says, “I will wash you as white as snow.”
I invite you to take a few moments to do something that has helped me: write down those life experiences that have caused you to feel shame. Then for each item you listed, hear Jesus speak His words of love over you.
God’s love is the antidote to shame.
Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.
Genesis 2:25
At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness.
Genesis 3:7
To you they cried out and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
Psalm 22:5 ESV
See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.
1 Peter 2:6 NIV
“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”
Isaiah 1:18 NIV
Five Minutes in the Word 