Fractures Within: A Gospel Lens on Guilt and Shame

Note: This article builds upon themes explored in the previous two articles, "When Doing Isn’t Enough" and "Perfect Is Not What You Think." If you haven’t read them yet, we highly recommend doing so first, as they provide vital context for understanding the layers of the struggle of the rich young ruler as his question mirrors the quiet ache many of us carry today.

There are moments when outward obedience collides with inward unrest, when the soul, though disciplined, feels displaced. In the gospel account of the rich young ruler, we meet a man who has "done everything right" and still senses something is wrong. His moral résumé is spotless, his reputation unquestioned, yet his question betrays a deeper fracture: "What lack I yet?" This is no mere inquiry; it is a confession. Beneath his faithful record lie shadows of guilt and shame: guilt over what remains undone, and shame over who he fears he truly is. And in that moment, the cracks begin to show. His experience invites us to look beyond performance into the quiet fractures of the soul, the hidden places where guilt and shame converge, and only the gospel can speak peace.

When Shame Hides

This fracture is not always visible, but it is deeply felt. There is a kind of shame that hides in the pews. It dresses itself in obedience, smiles through worship, and serves without complaint, yet walks away each week with a silent ache: "Do I really measure up?" Many believers silently carry this ache. It is not always loud or dramatic. Sometimes it appears as a subtle insecurity, a gnawing sense that something is still missing in one's spiritual walk—despite everything they have done right. This is not the shame of open rebellion; it is the shame that grows in the soil of quiet faithfulness when the heart remains unsettled.

The rich young ruler embodies this quiet internal struggle. He had a moral record worthy of admiration. He wasn’t lawless; he was faithful, obedient, and disciplined. When he approached Jesus, it wasn’t to excuse sin but to secure assurance. And yet, despite his religious résumé, he asked a question that exposed his inner unrest: "What lack I yet?" (Matthew 19:20).

The Question That Shame Asks

That question was not born merely of guilt, it was born of shame. As Dr. Brené Brown observes, guilt says, "I did something wrong," while shame says, "I am wrong." The ruler's question wasn't just about a missed commandment; it reflected a deeper sense of insufficiency. He had done the right things, but he still felt inadequate. That is the voice of shame. It doesn’t critique behavior; it questions identity.

This question, then, is not surface-level, it is the confession of a man who has obeyed the letter of the law, yet feels the absence of life. He was searching for something more, something to resolve the dissonance between outward righteousness and inward restlessness. And that’s the sting of shame: one can have the right doctrine, the right behavior, the right appearance, and still feel like something is off within.

The Invitation Beneath the Ache

Jesus does not ignore the honest question, He honors it with a deeper invitation. He responds not with condemnation, but with clarity: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast … and come and follow me." This is not a rebuke; it is a summons to become whole. 

Jesus is not introducing a new law, He is exposing the ruler’s inward condition. The issue wasn’t merely what the young man had done; it was what he had become. His identity had become entangled in his possessions, his performance, and his status. And that’s where the shame had settled. "If thou wilt be …" speaks not just to his actions, but to his essence. This was simply a call to become whole. Jesus was calling him to a restored person and identity, not through achievement, but through abandonment and surrender.

Shame assaults worth. It doesn’t just remind one of what they lack; it convinces them that they “are” not enough. It takes what they have done wrong, or not done enough, and turns it into who they believe they are. It whispers that their insufficiency is permanent, that their cracks define them.

Shame isolates. The ruler walked away sorrowful, not because Jesus asked too much, but because he clung too tightly to what he believed made him valuable. That is the cruel irony of shame: it binds us to the very things that are breaking us and blinds us to the One who can make us whole.

A Better Word Than Shame

Amid all this, the gospel speaks a better word. The gospel doesn’t just free us from guilt, it heals us from shame. It doesn’t only forgive what we’ve done, it reclaims who we are. In Christ, we are not just called to be perfect; we are "made" perfect. The process may expose our shame, but it also offers us something greater: a new identity, rooted not in what we can achieve, but in what Christ has can  accomplish in us.

So, to find oneself echoing the young ruler’s question, "What lack I yet?" is a real ache, but it’s not a sign of disqualification. It’s an invitation, an invitation to go deeper, to let go, to follow. It is an opportunity to discover that the wholeness one longs for doesn’t come from proving oneself, but from surrendering to the only One who makes us perfect.

Guilt and Shame: A Double Blow to the Soul

Guilt and shame always move in tandem, with guilt riding on the shoulders of shame. Where one is present, the other is close behind. Guilt says, “You’ve broken the law.” Shame says, “You’ve fallen short of glory.” The apostle Paul captures both in a single sentence: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This verse carries both weight and witness: sinned is guilt, the moral infraction. Come short of glory is shame, the broken image.  It’s not just that we’ve done wrong; it’s that we’ve lost something of who we were meant to be.

This dynamic duo, guilt and shame, mirrors the very design with which God created man. Man was made in the image and likeness of God: the image signifying our ontological - our nature of being, and the likeness our moral code. When man sinned, both were marred. Guilt arises because the moral compass convicts us of wrongdoing. Shame enters because we’ve fallen beneath the dignity of our design.

The psalmist gives voice to this tension: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? ... For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour” (Psalm 8:4–5). These two, glory and honour, were not mere ornaments; they were the crown of man’s divine appointment. Glory speaks to the radiance of God’s image reflected in man. Honour speaks to the moral uprightness of his walk. Together, they formed the crown of viceroyship, authority under God’s sovereign rule.

But sin stripped that crown away.

Guilt forfeits honour. Shame forfeits glory. This is no mere abstraction; it’s a spiritual reality the psalmist laments plainly: “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame?” (Psalm 4:2). The antithesis of glory is shame. Shame is what happens when glory is despised, distorted, or disregarded. It is the weight of fallen identity pressing down on the soul. What was meant to reflect God’s image becomes a source of shame. The fall did not just stain our record, honour; it shattered our reflection - glory. This is why Adam hid. Not only was he guilty, he was ashamed. He had not merely broken God’s law, he had fallen short of God's glory.  That is how the crown was lost.

Back to the Ruler; And to Us

All of this brings us back to the rich young ruler. When we consider his story, we must see more than a man with a question, we must see a soul weighed down by both guilt and shame. He was not ignorant of the law; he had lived under its guidance from his youth, yet he fell short of its demands, some things were left undone. But something still felt off - he lacked peace. He had performed, yet he still felt incomplete. His guilt stemmed not from open rebellion, but from a quiet sense of neglected duty. His shame ran deeper, it whispered that he still wasn’t enough.

Together, guilt and shame can drain hope from the soul. One accuses the conscience; the other assaults the identity. And when both speak at once, even the most faithful believer can feel lost, uncertain, and unworthy.

Guilt and shame, in their essence, are the true definition of condemnation. As long as the law of God remains written on our hearts, as Scripture declares it is, our hearts will serve as courtrooms, rendering verdicts over our lives. They either accuse or excuse us, condemn or absolve us, based on that internal standard. This is why the assurance of salvation feels so elusive to many: because it is often filtered through the unresolved convictions of guilt and the lingering imprint of shame. As the apostle John reminds us, "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God" (1 John 3:21). Assurance, then, is not simply a theological declaration, it is the result of a heart that has been quieted by truth and made whole by grace.

Guilt and shame, then, are not merely emotional afflictions, they are the antithesis of perfect. For when both questions - “What good thing must I do?” and “What lack I yet?” - remain unresolved, Jesus does not offer more commandments. Instead, He offers a call to be perfect. His words, “If thou wilt be perfect …”, address both the guilt of what we’ve done and the shame of who we’ve become.

Perfect, then, is the opposite of condemnation. In the beginning, during the week of creation, everything God made was called "good", and good in God's eyes is perfect. Each day's work was declared good, complete, sufficient. In God’s eyes, it was perfect. And the totality of His creation was pronounced "very good." There was no condemnation in what God created, for there was no defect, no guilt, no shame. To be perfect, therefore, is to return to that state, to live in the absence of condemnation. When Jesus calls us to be perfect, He is not inviting us into a burdensome ideal, but back into the peace of unbroken communion with God, a life where guilt and shame no longer speak, and where the soul can once again rest under the divine verdict: "It is good."

Homeostasis and the Soul

In physiological terms, perfect is to the soul what homeostasis is to the body. Homeostasis refers to the body’s ability to maintain internal stability amid external change, it doesn’t mean nothing ever goes wrong, but that the body can recover, adapt, and stay whole. In the same way, to be  perfect is not about flawlessness, but about the soul's return to balance, peace, and right alignment with God. It is the restoration of our original design, free from condemnation, grounded in grace and  truth. Just as the body needs equilibrium to thrive, the soul needs wholeness to flourish. Where homeostasis preserves life in the body, perfect sustains life in the spirit.

Just as the body suffers when homeostasis is lost, when internal systems are thrown into chaos and can no longer self-correct, the soul suffers when it becomes spiritually dysregulated. Guilt and shame are the soul’s warning signs, like fevers or fatigue in the body. They signal that something within is off-balance, unresolved, and under pressure. Where there is no spiritual homeostasis, no rest, no assurance, no wholeness, there is condemnation. But where Christ restores the soul, He brings not only forgiveness but inner stability, the peace that passes understanding. He brings us back to spiritual equilibrium, back to perfect.

But here is the hope: the gospel enters not just to mend our fractures, but to restore our crown. Christ doesn’t simply remove the guilt of what we’ve done, He restores our crown. He reinstates the glory and honour that shame and guilt had stripped away, lifting us from condemnation and clothing us again in dignity and purpose. Where guilt says, “You failed,” and shame says, “You are a failure,” the gospel says, “You are forgiven, and you are being made whole.” The fracture within is real, but it is not final. In Jesus, the story does not end in sorrow, it ends in surrender, healing, and a new beginning. This is the gospel’s answer to our fracture: not condemnation, but restoration.

Let’s Prayer

Our Heavenly Father,

You see the cracks we cannot name and the questions we struggle to ask. You know the weight of guilt that burdens our conscience and the voice of shame that distorts our identity. Thank You for not turning away from our brokenness, but stepping into it with mercy and truth.

Search us, LORD, not just our actions, but our essence. Speak to the fractures within. Heal what shame has hidden. Silence the lie that we are not enough. Remind us that in Christ, we are not merely repaired, we are made new.

Restore to us the crown of honour and glory. Not by our striving, but by Your grace. And let us walk forward not sorrowful, but surrendered, no longer fractured, but made whole in You.

Amen.