Have You Lost Your Blush?

Have you lost your blush? Perhaps you are thinking, What an odd question! No, ladies, I’m not talking about that little container of pink stuff we put on our cheeks to make them rosy. I’m talking about the ability to blush. Have you lost your ability to blush?

I’m reading in Jeremiah right now, and yesterday, and then again today I came across two verses that caught my attention.

“Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.” Jeremiah 6:15

“Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.” Jeremiah 8:12

These verses are almost identical, and they both contain an interesting phrase. “They were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.”

Definition of blush:
To become red in the face, especially from modesty, embarrassment, or shame; flush.
To become red or rosy.
A reddening of the face, especially from modesty, embarrassment, or shame.

A medical definition of the word blush is this: A brief, diffuse erythema of the face and neck, commonly the result of dilation of superficial small blood vessels in response to heat or sudden emotion.
Other explanations are: A confused state of mind acts upon the sympathetic nervous system. From there, the vasodilators are stimulated which causes the peripheral capillaries to expand. As a result, more blood flows to the surface of the face and neck, resulting in the reddening of the face and neck.

Have you ever felt your cheeks grow warm and you knew your face was flushed? That was a blush. What caused that blush?
Somebody said something that embarrassed you. Perhaps it was a compliment, and you flushed with pleasure. That was the blush of modesty.
Perhaps someone teased you about something that you felt was too personal, and you blushed because they intruded on your personal feelings--imposed themselves on your reserved areas.

Two of my best friends, one of them being my sister, blush very easily. I know them both pretty well, and I know the things that will make them squirm with discomfort. I know exactly what to tease them about and how far to go in that teasing so as to make them blush several shades of red. I get a good deal of enjoyment out of making them blush. Hey, I’ll admit it! I’m bad! (chuckle) I would only recommend trying this out on friends you know very well, who also know you love them a whole lot. Don’t push it too far. It wouldn’t do to lose a friend because you embarrassed them into turning into a tomato. If I think I may have overstepped my boundaries, I usually apologize and then remind my friends that if I didn’t like them bunches, I wouldn’t waste my time thinking of ways to tease and harass them. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t know they enjoyed the attention as much as I enjoyed doing the teasing.

And then there is the blush that is produced by embarrassment because of someone else’s wrongdoing. Maybe you saw something that you knew was wrong, and it made you blush with embarrassment. You stumbled upon it unknowingly, and your innocence caused you to blush upon discovering something that violated your innocency.

And then there is the blush that is caused by shame because of personal guilt. That blush is the outward signal that there is an inner problem. The conscience is nagging, telling you that you are wrong. You are to blame. You are guilty. You have sinned. This is the blush of conviction. This is the blush God is referring to in Jeremiah.

“Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.”

God says in Jeremiah that Israel was so set in her wickedness that she lost her ability to blush with shame for her sin. Apparently God thinks it’s important to be able to blush. The blush is an indicator that there is still hope of repentance. The blush indicates that there is still some amount of self-guilt…of conviction. That little alarm that God placed in each human being, the thing that warns us when we are about to do something wrong and then torments our minds when we have sinned, that thing called Conscience, is still intact.

Is your conscience still doing what it’s supposed to? Is it still warning you? Is it still making you feel guilty when you sin? Can you still blush???

Romans 2:14 says, “…For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”

When God formed mankind, He wrote His Law in our hearts. God gave us each a conscience that bears witness with the thoughts and intents of our hearts. You might look at it like this. Conscience is the presiding judge. According to the Laws of God, which are etched in our hearts, Conscience determines whether our thoughts and motives are pure or corrupt. Conscience excuses us according to our innocence or accuses us when we are guilty, thereby causing shame or embarrassment. I think that often our ability to blush determines how much we listen to our conscience.

God gave us a free will. He allows us to choose. We can either listen to our guilty conscience and blush with shame, or we can stop listening and tune it out. We can silence Conscience. We can go so far in our sin that we lose our ability to hear the warnings. This is what 1 Timothy 4:2 is talking about when it says, “…having their conscience seared with a hot iron.”

Definition of sear:
To char, scorch, or burn the surface of with or as if with a hot instrument; burn.
To cause to dry up and wither.
To become withered or dried up.

A seared conscience is one that ceases to warn or alert. Every time our conscience tries to warn us about something, and we ignore those warnings, we might as well be taking a hot iron and scorching our conscience. Every time we refuse to heed to Conscience, we are slowly killing it. Like a plant. Every time we water a plant, we are giving it attention. We are causing it to continue producing life-giving oxygen. But when we stop giving the plant attention, after a period of time it will wither up and die. It will stop giving off oxygen. Like a plant, our conscience thrives when we “water it,” or listen to it. It becomes more sensitive to right and wrong when we give it attention. When we stop listening, it withers and dies, and the “oxygen,” or good warnings it produces, fail.

Let me give you an example of the slow process of a seared conscience. A friend of mine told me this story. It took place before she got saved. As a lost girl, she knew nothing about dressing modestly, in a covering way. As the cold of winter passed and spring’s warmth turned to the blazing heat of summer, it was normal for her and her friends to wear cooler clothing. This friend of mine told me that she used to walk around her neighborhood in the bare minimum of clothing. She remembers well that at first she felt embarrassed and ashamed to have so little clothing on in public. But, as the summer wore on, and she continued to dress (or not dress) in this fashion, those feelings of shame and embarrassment slowly left her. You know what caused those feelings of shame? Conscience! Conscience said, “It’s not right to uncover your nakedness. It’s not right to reveal your shame.”

Think back with me to the Garden of Eden. It was when Adam and Eve sinned that they realized they were naked. In guilt and shame, they hide themselves from the holy presence of God. Thus, we see that in the beginning of time, sin revealed the nakedness of mankind to himself, and today the unashamed display of nakedness reveals the sin of an unblushing human race. We have lost our shame. We have seared our consciences to the point that we cannot blush about the things that should make us blush.

There are no bounds to what a person with a seared conscience can do. The first offence may be a simple thing like stealing some candy. Conscience whispers that it is wrong to steal. Why? Because God’s Law is written in our hearts, and His Law says, “Thou shalt not steal.” We can choose to ignore or take heed to that twinge of guilt sent by Conscience. As with all things, one thing leads to another. If we ignore the warnings of Conscience, soon we will see no reason why we can’t steal, and then lie about it, and then cheat. All these “little sins” build up. The conscience is seared, not all at once, but slowly, by degrees. Soon the convicting element of guilt is nonexistent. It is the seared conscience that leads to lust, fornication, adultery, hatred, envying, and murder. Remember! You don’t have to kill to murder! All it takes is a seed of hatred in the mind. God sees hatred as murder, as though it had actually been committed. And then we wonder, How did it lead up to all that? It started by ignoring the conscience. It started with the loss of the blush.

In Ezra 9:6, Ezra cried to the Lord in prayer, “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.”

Bringing the sin of his people before the throne, Ezra exclaimed that he blushed to stand in the presence of One so holy. Christian, do you blush with your sin? Do you blush when you see the sin around you? Do you look at those billboards, or turn away with flushed cheeks? Does your innocence cause you to blush? You can afford to lose many things. But don’t ever lose your ability to blush!

Have You Lost Your Blush?