<\/p>\n
When I was 12 years old, I told my father a lie\u2014and I soon found that I had to tell more lies just to keep the first lie going. It felt like something ugly had taken over my soul, and I couldn\u2019t get rid of it. That was guilt, and most of us learn at a young age how destructive it can be. Guilt festers in our soul; it can wear us down, even physically; and it can erode our relationships. Guilt is related to a moral standard, and since we fall short of God\u2019s standard, we all live with guilt.<\/p>\n
Leviticus 16 is the thematic center of God\u2019s law. The Day of Atonement illustrated how God would remove the guilt of all his people. Because sin contaminated the community and everyone in it, the priest made atonement for his own sin, his family\u2019s sin, and the sins of all the people; then he did the same for the tabernacle, since it was contaminated by the people\u2019s uncleanness.<\/p>\n
Two goats were chosen. One was killed, and its blood was poured out to signify that the penalty of death was paid. The other goat became the scapegoat and was sent out into the wilderness.<\/p>\n
But the Day of Atonement ritual couldn\u2019t deal fully with our guilt. No sacrifice of animals could truly pay our debt. But when Jesus cried out on the cross, \u201cIt is finished\u201d (John 19:30)\u2014the price for our sin was paid once for all! When we confess our sin, we can be assured that Jesus has atoned for us and that our guilt no longer counts against us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was 12 years old, I told my father a lie\u2014and I soon found that I had to tell more lies just to keep the first lie going. It felt like something ugly had taken over my soul, and I couldn\u2019t get rid of it. That was guilt, and most of us learn at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[86,269,877,181],"class_list":["post-10384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-devotionals","tag-daily","tag-devotional","tag-guilt","tag-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}