Shame and The Foothold

I am formally objecting to any phrasing involving the devil and The Foothold.  You've likely heard it before in some incarnation of this: Don't let the devil get a foothold.  I'm going to talk about it as The Foothold, because that's how I've thought of it.  It's the Real Big Thing the devil uses to get into your business and mess you up.  It's not simply a foothold, it's The Foothold.

Here's my problem with The Foothold.  When we phrase a warning to someone about The Foothold, the implication is usually that your sin will let the devil in and he'll mess you up from there.  I interpreted this as the sin being the thing that would get you messed up.  That somehow the devil would take that weak point, that sin, and prod you along into bigger, deeper, uglier holes of sin.  I now know that this is a lie.  Or at least it is quite wrong.

The Foothold is not the sin; The Foothold is the shame.  The Lord makes this much clear about salvation: sin is no longer an issue.  The scripture tells us that Jesus died for all of our sins.  Though we were as scarlet, we are now white as snow.  Sin is no longer an issue because we are forgiven for all sin always.  The blood of Jesus takes care of that.  Does that mean we should sin?  No, and Paul points this out eloquently, so go read his letters.  I want to talk about shame, because that is where the devil gets a grip and messes us up.  The enemy comes to accuse us, to shame us, to lie about who we are.  He tells us that the sin we do is who we are.  "You're not white as snow, look at that scarlet shirt you keep putting on."  And this is a convincing argument, except for this nugget of truth: it's a lie.  The enemy is a liar and nothing else, and what the Word says is that we are white as snow always and forever.  So the shame is from the enemy, not from God, and the enemy is good at shame, and it's how he gets The Foothold.

If you remember nothing about guilt (which I'm using as a synonym for shame), remember this: guilt accomplishes nothing.  Guilt is our way of feeling like we can earn the salvation we know is free.  It makes our Flesh feel good to earn our salvation; that is what the Flesh wants.  It's ironic that our urge as fallen people is to reject the free Gift of Grace and grab hold of the expensive Baggage of Guilt, but we do that a lot.  It's our urge.  But here's some good news before you try to grab another handful of new guilt: we who are saved are new creatures, white as snow, whether we realize it or not.  But oh, whoa, and oh again, it is so much better if you realize it and embrace it and walk in it.  There is no freedom in shame, and guilt will not lead you to freedom, but there is all the freedom you could ever want in Grace.