When you feel like your life is off track, it is. No matter how hard we try no person is ever perfectly aligned with truth and reality.

We can never exert enough self-effort to do everything right. No matter how hard we try, we always fall short of perfection, righteousness, and a pure heart.

To deny or justify your wrongdoing is to embrace deception, alienation, and bondage. Instead of accepting our wrongdoing, corrupt desires, and distorted thinking, we need to admit we’re off track and to seek mercy, forgiveness, and a new heart.

When you can’t forgive and remove all guilt from yourself, there is someone who can. Ask Jesus to forgive you, cleanse you, and empower you to follow Him! Inner peace comes when we humbly receive Christ’s mercy, forgiveness, and love, not when we exert our proud self-righteous effort. The more you let Christ live and work in you, the more freedom you have from guilt and sin.

Our conscience tries to warn us that we are engulfed in guilt and need God’s forgiveness so that we can be free from inner voices of hopeless accusation and condemnation. When we refuse to acknowledge our guilt, we alienate ourselves from God’s mercy, forgiveness, and deliverance. Christianity isn’t about being found not guilty. It’s about sincerely and openly pleading guilty and receiving the mercy that Jesus purchased for you by His blood.

Christianity gives the answer as:

God’s mercy, not our merit,
Grace, not achieving first place,
Repentance, not a life-sentence,
Pleading guilty, not self-justification,
God’s forgiveness, not self-righteousness,
Love, not to push and shove,
Brokenness, not will power,
Kindness, not competition,
Self-denial, not self-focus,
Serving, not deserving,
Truth, not deception,
Humility, not pride,
Peace, not anxiety,
Joy, not despair,
Jesus, not religion,
“Christ in you,” not you in charge,
Being Spirit-led, not getting ahead.