When Your Heart Stops Blushing

Sin begins with a troubled conscience but can harden the heart until shame disappears and rebellion feels normal.

Do you remember the shame you felt when you first consciously acted against your parent’s instruction? 

I remember as a child in second grade being offered a cigarette by an older boy. There were several of us kids gathered that day. At first, I refused, I heard my parents’ clear injunction, “Smoking is bad for you!” But then, as the others were taking their first puffs, even though they coughed, they laughed. I caved. With trembling hands, I knew I was breaking faith with my parents’ instruction. But after several days passed and I experienced no negative consequences, I got a little bolder and cockier. Fortunately for me, within two weeks, God removed the bad influencer, and I never picked up the smoking habit. What I remember most isn’t the cigarette—it’s how quickly my shame began to fade. What felt wrong the first day felt much less wrong a week later.

When we first give in to sin—the desire to live apart from God, seeking in lesser things what can only be found in Jesus Christ—we usually do so with some sense of shame. We know sin is wrong but don’t really comprehend its consequences. 

For example, before they sinned, Adam and Eve lived without shame. But when they rebelled against God, they immediately recognized their guilt and hid from Him. Sin and shame separated them first from God, then from each other, and ultimately from life itself.

Rebellion against God separates us from joyful, liberating living and emboldens us to do what we know shouldn’t be done. 

Which is why parents must lovingly teach, correct, and hold their children accountable before small acts of rebellion become deeply rooted habits.

And as adults, we must pray daily, “Lord Jesus, deliver me from evil!”

Acts 4:1-3 (ESV) records a shameful act by the religious authorities: “And as [Peter and John] were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they arrested them.”

The early Church Father Chrysostom explained that when seeking to arrest Jesus, the religious leaders used a traitor “but now they arrest the apostles with their own hands, having grown more audacious and more impudent since the crucifixion.” Sin starts out with a sense of shame, “but once fully formed, it makes those who practice it more shameless.” 

Sin deceives and hardens the sensitive heart and ultimately separates us from God and healthy living.

Today, listen to God’s Word and obey Him while your heart remains sensitive to His voice. Don’t allow repeated sin to harden your conscience. Instead, confess it quickly, receive Christ’s forgiveness, and walk in His ways.