There is an important difference between what the world offers, and what God offers. The best the world can offer is: Process your issue and move on; even if you’ve been through a rough trial, just carry on. The idea is that if you’ve done something bad or experienced trauma, you talk it out and move on. There is some benefit, of course, in talking about what we’ve gone through, but that’s not what the Gospel is. The Gospel doesn’t say just move on; the Gospel says atonement, which is the reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ.

The Gospel is not denying that perhaps some of the ungodly things from your past bother you, or that you did something horrible to another person. What the Gospel is saying is that all of your wrong actions died and were crucified with Christ. You literally traded places when you accepted a relationship with Jesus, in that He became all of those things that you did. Without God, a person’s soul still holds ungodly acts in an unconscious place, which can lead a person to smile on the outside, but feel tormented on the inside.

Friend, as a believer by faith, you can literally say that person is dead and gone. The situation is dead no matter when it occurred. You just give it to the Lord, and He forgives. Isn’t this an amazing gift? It means don’t feel shame, feel God’s forgiveness, and then do your very best to live like Christ.