He was hung in front of men, women and children to die a shameful death on the cross, gasping to breathe, in terrible, terrible torment, carrying our shame. No matter what shame you've experienced, Jesus carried that shame. Have you been abused? He was violently abused, physically abused. He was verbally abused, He was mocked and ridiculed, and He took our shame on Himself. He experienced shame, so you could be set free of shame. He took sin on Himself, so we could be free of sin. He took our sicknesses on Himself, so we could be healed. He took the penalty of the curse on Himself, so the curse could be broken; all that we could come into blessing. God's plan is that He designed us to be unashamed. When sin entered and man became ashamed, and covered with shame, Jesus made a way that the shame could be taken away. You should not live with it. You must not live with it. You can never fulfil your destiny living with shame. Jesus has made provision, we can throw off that shame! Someone put it on us, we accepted it, and began to wear that beggarly garment. We can put it off - but to put it off, I must come and bring the shame to someone who understands, someone who stood on my behalf, someone who conquered the shame! I need to bring it to Him, and throw it off onto Him who carried it by an act of faith!
How do I get rid of my sin? I confess it to Him, and let it go to Him, and believe He carried it, and supernaturally the grace of God enters, and I am clean and know it! It's the same with your shame. It's like an old beggar's garment that you put on, and it cloaks you and covers you, but you've got to let it go! Throw it off and release it to the Lord! Do NOT let it come on again! When we look at next week, or the next time round and we teach on this, we'll be looking at how you change what you believe, so you begin to believe differently. Every time that shame comes again and tries to cloak you, PUSH against and put it off! You don't take the shame. You're not to take shame. Shame will cause you to not even know who you are. You'll have a mask on - so the first step in breaking free of shame, there is someone who God sent into this earth, to help me be free. I need to come to Him. He's not ashamed to call you His brother and sister. Isn't that amazing? He's not ashamed of us. Sometimes we're ashamed to come to Him.
Do you know what happens when we know something's wrong in our life? We do just what Adam and Eve did, we cover up and hide from God, run away, instead of just coming to Him, no matter what it's like, no matter how bad it is, no matter what you're ashamed of. No matter what you've done or has been done to you, He is not ashamed of you. He loves you. He came to get rid of the shame. You've just got to come to Him - make a decision: I'll come to the one who bore my shame. Jesus said: come to me all you who are heavy, who are burdened and heavy laden. Shame is a heavy burden on people's lives. We become secretive, covered, alone, a terrible burden. He said: come to Me, come to Me. My yoke's easy, my burden's light. See, very, very good.
Okay, let's have a look. The second thing we need to do, is to break the attachments to shame. In other words, even though I've come to the Lord, there are some things I need to recognise that cause shame. There are mechanisms cause shame to cling onto me, and many would have just come to Jesus, and told Him they loved Him and given their life to Him, but still the shame seems to cling. There can be some reasons for this. In Amos 3, Verse 3, the Bible says: can two walk together, except they be agreed? If I want to walk with God, I must be agreed with Him, I must come into agreement with what He says about me, see? I must agree, if I want to walk God. I can't walk with someone, and I think totally different to them. I mean if you don't have people - normally the people we are friends with, or walk with, actually have similar interests and similar ways of thinking. God says: you can't walk with Me, unless you come into agreement with how I see things. He says: you see it from My point of view, we're in agreement, you're now able to represent Me in the earth, but if you've got your own ideas and your own ways of thinking, and you've got your own things about me, He said: you can't walk with Me.