After you acknowledge your shame, act against it, and address it, ask God to give you a passion for Him once again. The only way you will get out from under shame's dominion is through a renewed, intimate relationship with God.
When Jesus was led away to be crucified, all of His disciples turned and fled, including Peter who subsequently denied Christ three times. After Peter repented, Jesus asked him three times with increasing levels of intensity, "Do you love me?" Peter responded each time, "You know I love you, Lord!" Then Jesus commissioned him, "Feed my sheep."
To paraphrase, Jesus said to Peter, "You failed me, but you have repented and are forgiven. Now all you need to qualify you to feed my sheep is an intimate relationship with me." The new, vital union Peter developed with Jesus enabled him to become one of the greatest leaders in the early church, a man so anointed of God that the mere shadow of his body resulted in miracles of healing according to Acts 5:15.
-When Paul was delivered from his inherited shame, his impassioned cry was "That I might know him in the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering."
-When David was forgiven of his individual shame, David prayed in Psalm 51:
"Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation...Open my lips, And my mouth shall show forth Your praise."
-When the woman caught in adultery broke her shackles of imposed shame, she received a passion for God that enabled her to live a new life.
-After institutional shame was shattered in Rahab's life, she developed such a passionate relationship with God that she was included in the hall of faith in Hebrews chapter 11.
Many people let the shame of their sins and failures prevent them from fulfilling their God-given destiny. Often, denominational regulations propagate this when we refuse
to restore leaders to ministry after they fall into sin. But we serve the God of a second chance.
Individuals have a choice. They can be hostages to the shame of their past or refuse to let shame control and dictate their future. When you break the shackles of shame, you come to the realization that what Paul wrote to the people in Colossians 2:13, 14 is true:
"You, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."
Let Jesus have your shame. It's not ever going to do you good!
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