The Illegal Alien Called Shame

Asking the Lord a question I felt impressed to go to the very beginning in Genesis. As I read the words, “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25) I saw something I’d never seen before. With regard to the mention that they were naked, it doesn’t say they had no self-consciousness. It says they had no shame. The first mention of anything negative in the Bible is said about it not being there: “…they felt no shame.” They were entirely free of any shame at all. Being perfect, that would certainly be the case. But why mention it at all?

I had always assumed Adam and Eve were so God-conscious that they were entirely without self-consciousness until after the Fall. If, however, they were created in God’s image, God is Self-aware, so they must have been also. When God had Adam name the animals he became conscious of the fact that there was not one suitable as a mate for him, so he was aware of his own feelings and need for companionship. When God brings her to him, they are now aware of each other. Since all is entirely reflective of the character and nature of God, all was good. There was no shame in their relationship whether it had to do with their nakedness or who they each were on any level.

I thought of how rare it is to have a relationship where two people, be it in marriage or friendship, who are so accepting and honoring of one another that there is no place for any shame. We know the perfection of Adam and Eve’s shameless relationship quickly dissolved into blame and distrust when God confronted them with their sin. Why the blame-shifting? We generally conclude that each blamed the other to avoid taking the responsibility themselves. Or, could they have been trying to find their way out of the horrible emotionally uncharted waters of guilt and shame they now found themselves all but drowning in? Shame is excruciating enough but to come to it after the perfection they lived in, I can’t imagine what they must have felt. Entirely disorienting I would think. Shock for another, especially at the level of fear they were experiencing for the first time.

But how do we know it was shame and not just guilt they were feeling? To begin with, their original nakedness was linked with having no shame but now “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (2:7), hence, shame! The same nakedness that brought them no shame before they sinned now drives them to try and cover or compensate for what can only be shame now that they knew they were naked. The “grace” they had always and only known was replaced with the

“disgrace” they are now feeling.

The Hebrew word for shame means: to feel or put to disgrace or dishonor, to wound, to taunt or insult, to hurt or bring reproach. It also means to bring confusion. (Doesn’t that all sound like the devil’s work?) In particular, shame brings confusion because it distorts the truth that God has created us all for and in love. Shame makes us feel as if we are entirely unworthy of love in any of its expressions. The more deeply entrenched the shame, the more unworthy we believe we are. Where God is involved (and He always is even if no one knows it), the truth of His love is turned into a lie that the shamed one is entirely unworthy of God’s (or someone else’s) ability to love them. The reason Adam and Eve were afraid and hid from God was that they were suddenly confused about God’s love for them. They tried to hide their sudden “disgrace” with fig leaves and then “dishonored” one another with blame. But it was shame that was at the root.

We said earlier shame was not within them. Shame was not intrinsic to them. Shame wasn’t an emotion that had been dormant within them until they sinned and then it came to the surface. No, shame was put on them by the devil. Shame came from him. God’s character and nature are defined as love and truth, whereas satan means adversary. It’s not his name, it’s a title, literally, the adversary, which speaks of his character and nature as the one who is against. Who is he against? God. What is he against? The truth of who God is and in particular that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) which is foundational to all else He is, along with His holiness. The adversary is out to distort the good and holy character and nature of God to whomever he can get to listen. And shame is his most sophisticated diabolical tool. It would seem that he controls the world with, not just the fear of death, but also by whispering the threat of shame to us constantly. We fear or seek to avoid any manifestation of failure, rejection, or abandonment really because of the shame underlying those experiences, though we may not identify the underlying shame. The devil is subtle but that’s real issue.

The Bible says the fear of death is how satan controls mankind, which is why Yeshua had to willingly die, to face the fear and overcome it. But it appears that the fear of death wasn’t the only thing that Yeshua had to face. The word also says that Yeshua “endured the cross, despising the shame…” (Heb. 12:2). Why just the shame? Why not despise the rejection, the alienation from His Father, or the nakedness, or the pain and physical suffering? Or even the end of His life, or death itself? Why are we told that it was shame that He so despised? Is it a clue as to the significance of shame, of its power over mankind, like the fear of death, that Yeshua would have to conquer? And why did He despise shame over all else He faced? Because shame is that which is most characteristic of satan himself. To address it only briefly here, the plan that satan would take over heaven when he convinced one-third of the angels to mutiny with him failed miserably and didn’t give him the glory, power and worship he intended made him instead a being filled with the greatest shame imaginable. Because his goal was the highest imaginable, to out-god God, his failure was the deepest possible and he carries the shame of it as part of his being still. The shame fuels satan’s rage.

What Yeshua most likely dreaded in the Garden causing Him to sweat blood, and what He despised most in all of His crucifixion experience was the shame he would have to take upon himself when he took on the sins of mankind. Have you ever not wanted to have something despicable to you touch you? So Yeshua despised shame that was entirely alien to His character and nature of love, mercy and justice. Shame was everything He was not. It may have been the weight of the shame while on the cross that caused Him to think God had abandoned Him, because He experienced what it is to feel entirely unworthy of God or His love.

Thank the Lord, that isn’t, as we know, the end of the story. The entire passage says, “…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-3). Yeshua knew there would be joy on the other side because He would face it and He would endure and He would be victorious over the power of shame on our behalf. He, the Lord of love, did this for us. It leaves me speechless before Him in awe that He faced what He did out of love.

So what are we to do with this marvelous insight? For one thing, rejoice that shame is not resident within us, especially as Blood-bought children of God for whom no sin can be held against us. Shame is an illegal alien and we have every right to cast it out of our lives, out of our minds and out of our relationships. We are entirely free in Yeshua” because there is no shame in Him because there is no sin in Him. His blood has made us legally sinless in God’s eyes if we have received His atonement for our own sins and committed to living our lives before Him in righteousness. Will we make some mistakes and even sin on occasion? Likely, but we’re probably hating the fact that we sinned if we’re truly His. And we have an advocate in Yeshua who has already secured our release from guilt and shame, having taken it for us.

There are many verses in the Bible that will speak to who we are in Him, that are really shields against any shame the enemy tries to put on us. But now that you are aware of it, should shame come upon you for some reason, repent of the reason the door was open and tell it to leave. It has no legal right to stay there by the blood of Yeshua. “Take every thought captive to the obedience of Messiah Yeshua (2 Cor. 10:5) and let His word be your healing balm.

It may be that you may have some deep soul wounds where shame has taken up residency that need to be healed in order to walk in this freedom from shame. Now that you know this truth, spend time with the Lord and let Him bring healing to those places. Don’t fear them. Bring them before Him and let Him shine the light of His truth into those wounded places in your soul. You need not fear the shame attached to them any longer. Gived them to Him. Go on a new Scripture adventure and highlight verses that will give you new freedom and assurance from the subtle or not-so-subtle shame the devil may have tried to make you think was part of you. Come out of agreement with the shame. Repent and shame has no place in your life. Not anymore. You're free in Him! Hallelujah.  

Disqualified from the Rapture?

“I have a question,” said a woman in my Hebrew Roots class. “If I am angry with someone and I haven’t forgiven them yet and the Rapture comes, will I miss it?”  I could see that she was really troubled by the matter.  She didn’t mean she was carrying a long standing anger, she just meant in the last day or so.  She’s asking what if Jesus comes before she forgives the person she was angry with, will that disqualify her from going to be with Him?  Will He leave her behind if she’s still dealing with the anger?  Rapture or not, the issue is whether God turns away from us when we are angry. 

We need to look at this from a bigger picture than just being angry for the moment, or even for the day. My first question back to her was did she want to be angry with him (it was a him she was angry with).  No, she really didn’t.  She was fervently asking God to take the anger from her and to help her forgive him.  So her heart was not to relish in the anger or to justify it. She was taking full responsibility for it and wanting to repent and be free of it. She wanted to be right with God first and foremost. That is not the heart of someone whom Jesus would disregard.  She was responding like a person who is born again and wanting to please God.

Since God looks to see what’s in our hearts, her heart was in the right place. But what was she to do about this anger?  Well, sometimes we are provoked to anger because of injustice, because someone is acting in an unkind or ungodly way toward us. Even Yeshua got angry and pretty much let everyone around Him know it that day when He flipped over the tables in the temple, scattering coins and animals everywhere.   He was justifiably angry at ungodliness and sometimes there’s just cause for our anger too. 

We are created in His image and He sometimes gets very angry. God knows we’ll sometimes be angry.I’ve noticed that whenever He’s angry it’s because love has been violated somewhere, either love for Him or when people are being unloving to one another in some ungodly way.  But He doesn’t want us to stay angry. He says,  “Be angry and yet do not sin, and not let the sun go down on our anger” (Eph 4:26). In other words, don’t let it fester and feed on itself so it continues, or even grows into an even greater anger as anger can. Rage begins with an offense. Forgive and let it go to God for Him to deal with it. Might the person give you the same cause for anger another time? Quite possibly. So what are we to do?  Keep forgiving, “not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matt. 18:22).  Also, I have found that Yeshua’s paradigm-changing declaration from the Cross, “Abba, forgive them for they know not what they are doing” (Luke 23:34), puts things in a God-shaped perspective and will release you from anger every time and your tears will be turned to laughter.

So she wasn’t acting like a person who was not a candidate for Jesus taking her to be with Him. She was, in fact, hating what she saw as her own sin of anger and wanted to fully forgive and repent. Her heart was aligned with God, not against Him.

But here’s another aspect. Once we are born again, apart from decided that we really do not want God in our lives and we choose rebellion, turning our backs on Him and deliberately walking away from Him, our various conflicts and crises do not make us unborn again.  God doesn’t give us His Spirit and then take it back again every time we’re angry or we slip up.  We don’t live in a yo-yo faith where we’re His one day and not another just because we’re confronted with something we’re trying to learn how to deal with. If we’re His, we’re His. And He will help us learn to deal with things as we grow and mature in our life in God.




My friend was still dealing with some of the feelings of anger – which was, in her case, really exasperation – but she had repented of her anger and “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse (purify) us of all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Sometimes it takes a little while for our emotions to catch up with the decisions of our hearts.  Thank God for His unwavering faithfulness!