Joe Beam - Getting Past Guilt: Embracing Gods Forgiveness

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Getting Past Guilt 2003 by Joe Beam

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beam, Joe.

Getting past guilt: embracing Gods forgiveness / Joe Beam.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p.).

13 Digit ISBN: 978-1-58229-294-6
eISBN: 978-1-451-60502-0

10 Digit ISBN: 1-58229-294-9

1. GuiltReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. ForgivenessReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BT722.B43 2003

234.5dc21

2003049902

11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4

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Edited by Philis Boultinghouse and Kay Marshall Strom

Interior design by John Luke

Cover concept by Ken Fox

Cover design by Stephanie Denney and LinDee Loveland

Special treatment of words in quoted Scripture was added by the author for emphasis.

Scripture quotations not otherwise marked are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE , Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Scriptures marked KJV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, King James Version.

Joe Beam

For more than fifteen years, Joe Beam served as minister for growing churches in Georgia, Indiana, and Alabama. He is currently president of Family Dynamics Institute, a nonprofit organization that uses the latest scientific and most creative methods to strengthen families. (For more information, see .) Through FDI, Beam helps restore shattered families and shares with them Gods spiritual healing, which he discovered through his own devastating experiences with sin and brokenness. Before heading Family Dynamics, Beam served as president of Change Dynamics International, a successful resource development and training company. His client list included Sears, United Artists, Heilig-Meyers, Craft Industries, and more. Since 1970, Beam has spoken to more than a million people in personal appearances at Christian gatherings throughout the world. He has a bachelors degree in Bible and has done graduate work in clinical psychology. He is the author of Seeing the Unseen, and Becoming One, and has coauthored Fantastic Families. Joe and Alice Beam have three children.

This study is dedicated to

Jimmy Allen

This gifted revivalist and Bible teacher opened my eyesand the eyes of multiplied thousands of othersto the grace and mercy of God. He will always be a spiritual hero whose godly example of faith, dedication, and courage I will try to follow.

Setting the Stage

I am a prodigal returned.

Im proud of that.

And ashamed.

I glory in it even as I slump into spiritual depression by forcing myself to remember it. If youve ever been a prodigal, you understand the contradictory emotions tearing at my heart and mind just with the writing of the word. If you never have been, I dont know that I can explain. But Ill try.

You may remember the story of the prodigal son that Jesus told in the fifteenth chapter of Luke. You know the young man who had everything a young man could want but left it for a life of sin. Doesnt make much sense if you think about it logically. A wonderful home. Loving father. Riches and comfort and peace. Who knows why he left all that, why he abandoned all that was good and holy for a world of decadence and personal humiliation. You might think, Well, he knows. The prodigal son knows why he left. But we who are prodigals would beg to disagree. He undoubtedly would know the details of what happened. Asking him to explain why they happenedespecially why he did what he didmight prove altogether a different proposition. A much tougher task.

I know it would be for me.

In 1967 I enrolled as a freshman at a small Bible college in Montgomery, Alabama. Too young in years and too new to Christ, I had no idea why I was there. If youd asked me at the time, I would have told you about my girlfriend dumping me and my preacher, Charles Mullins, convincing me to leave town for a few months. Go to a Christian college, he urged, and forget about her. Build a new life. I went, but I expected to be back home soon. I carried no desire for a Bible education, just a jealous lover sorrowfully begging for my return. Three months or less and I figured Id be home, engaged.

Apparently God had something else in mind.

Within months of my arrival on campus and my immersion into an intensely Christian environment, I discovered the path God wanted for my life. I would be a preacher. To my great surprise, I learned that God had gifted me for it. Paul Tarence, one of my professors, allowed God to use him to mentor me. Between God and His servant, Paul, I was placed on the fast track. Within two years I married Alice Hilyer from Tallassee, Alabama, and was off to my first ministerial assignment in LaGrange, Georgia. I finished the last two years of my Bible degree by driving back and forth to Montgomery for classes while ministering to a gentle, small-town church willing to settle for a wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn. Why would they agree to such an arrangement? They said, Youre a boy, full of a boys foolishness, but when you step into the pulpit, God makes you into a powerful man.

Heady stuff for a twenty year old.