I Thessalonians 3:13
“so that He may establish your hearts in blamelessness and holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. Amen.”
The Lord wants to establish our hearts. Early in our faith, they can be very unstable. Yet, they can be indicators of our spiritual health. If they are guilt ridden, it could be we aren’t doing what we should. In today’s passage, it’s love. If we aren’t being loving, we know it, thus the guilt. The Lord may be prompting us, but we are ignoring Him. This also may the reason for the guilt.
Paul references how our consciences support us when we are doing the right thing in 2 Corinthians 1:12. “And this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in relation to you…”
Love is the primary command. We are to be that in all our relationships. It will look differently in our different settings. At times, we might not even realize that we need to love. He will prompt us. Our consciences will also remind us.
There are a couple of other sources of guilt, but these are false. If we’ve had impatient or critical parents, then they’ve bred within us a harsh responder. Even though we may be deep into adulthood, we are too hard on ourselves.
Another source of false guilt is the devil. Revelation 12:9 says one of his pseudo-names is “the accuser of the brethren”. One of his common tactics is to shame us. 2 Corinthians 2:11 tells us not to be “ignorant of his schemes”. When we are in this state, we isolate ourselves from God and others. Remember Adam and Eve in the Garden; they were hiding.
In the case of false guilt, we trust The Lord that we are blameless in Him. 1 John 3:20 speaks of how God is greater than our hearts. The guilt will fade.
Lord, thanks that You want our hearts to be blameless. Help us to love and act in a manner that they will support us.