Forgive yourself…
Probably one of the hardest things to do is to forgive
yourself. Someone once pointed out to me that it was not a Biblical principle.
I hunted and searched for hours trying to find something in the Bible about
forgiving oneself. The closest I came was David’s psalm 51 when he asked God to
create in him a clean heart and to renew a right spirit within him. When you
compare his psalm 32 in verse 3 When I
kept silence, then my bones became old, through my howling all day. We see
the consequences of unconfessed sin. But that is different from forgiving one’s
self for past transgressions which we have confessed and repented. Why do we groan
in shame for them long after the deed?
Satan constantly bombards us with taunts of past wrongs
hoping that our guilty feelings will draw us away from God, out from under His
protective wings. That is something that Satan knows we as Christians are prone
to do. We think our sin is too huge to be forgiven because we think from our
own level of forgiveness. How could we forgive someone doing that to us? If we
can’t forgive, then how can God forgive? That is another of Satan’s lies that
we buy into.
That still didn’t quite fit the requirement for a Biblical basis of
forgiving yourself. So I kept looking and found
Isaiah 54:4 Do not fear, for you shall not be shamed, nor
shall you be abashed, for you shall not be wounded, for you shall forget the
shame of your youth, and you shall not remember the reproach of your widowhood
any more.
Very
interesting word, widowhood. The Hebrew word is the feminine form of H488 which
is אלמן
'almân
al-mawn'
Prolonged from H481
in the sense of bereavement; discarded
(as a divorced person): - forsaken.
Isaiah is prophesying a time when Israel will be gathered to the LORD’s breast as a much beloved wife. In
verses four through five, he is talking about the shame and guilt we feel when
we are confronted with our sin and are convicted of it within our heart. Here
are most beautiful words to any Christian who has had those moments of
knee-bending, face-in-the-carpet shame: You
will no longer remember your disgrace.
Why did God say that? Because we have a conscience and we
are prone to dwell on the negative. That saying one bad apple spoils the whole
barrel is true. Negativism breeds and multiplies faster and further than
anything imaginable. Just look at the murmuring and rumbling of the Israelites
in the wilderness. When you get that old Dragon, the Accuser firing guilt
tipped darts at the chinks in our armor, you have a problem of unforgiveness of
the self kind.
To forgive our self, we must reverse that process and
remember that God is greater than our sin. Christ’s sacrifice was once and for
all… that means every possible, conceivable sin was accounted for and covered
by Jesus’ blood. That, my beloved siblings, is the greatest story of grace man
ever attempted to understand.
Since our Kinsman Redeemer has already bought the sin, why
do we insist on hanging on to it?
Unbelief.
It isn’t hard to do, either. Even Moses, who was the
conveyor of such miracles of God as the parting of the Red Sea, the providing
of water for more than two million thirsty people, plus all the livestock (which
is an astronomical amount of water every day), and forty year old shoes and
garments never wearing out plus many other things, had a moment of unbelief
which cost him the promised land. Numbers 20:10-12. He struck the rock twice
instead of speaking to it. God said it was his unbelief that caused it.
We Christians do not believe that God can, in fact already
has
forgiven that horrendous sin that we keep hidden in our hearts. Holding on to
the sin is tantamount to making Jesus go to the cross all over again. That is
what unbelief does. Since we know He only went once, and that was enough, then
we should know that those guilty feelings which Satan aims at us as fiery
darts, are literally harmless breaths of hot wind. They have no teeth so to
speak, it is merely baying at the moon.
What happens to
our past moral and spiritual failures when we repent of our sins and claim
God’s forgiveness? Have you ever had an itch right in the middle of your
back? Ever try to scratch it with your hand? That is where God casts our sins
when we confess and repent, never to be reached, touched or thought of again.
Glory!
The LORD
forgives the past. His great compassion is far beyond understanding. If we were
to be asked to give our first and only beloved son to pay for the lives of the
most wicked of people who had nothing worthy to give back, our hearts would be
granite and our faces be flint. Yet, God has mercy for us because while we were
yet sinners, Christ willingly died for us. Here’s the Biblical proof of it:
Heb
8:12 For I will be
merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will
remember no more."
Heb
10:17 also He adds,
"their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more."
Jer 31:34
And they shall no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his
brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them
to the greatest of them, says Jehovah. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I
will remember their sins no more.
Isa 38:17
Behold, for peace was bitter to me, most bitter; but You loved my
soul from the pit of destruction; You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
For the
mountains shall depart, and the hills tremble; My loving kindness shall not
depart from you, nor shall the covenant of My peace be shaken, says Jehovah who
loves you. Isaiah 54:10
4 comments:
I'm not sure that "forgive yourself" is in view here. In fact, I'm not so sure we even have a grasp of what "forgive" means anymore.
The biblical perspective on "forgive" is not merely to stop being angry about (or, in the case of self, guilty about) a transgression. The biblical perspective involves paying for a transgression, where the one paying is not the one owing. It is the act of pardoning, where someone else pays for the crime. We are forgiven by God because Someone else paid for our crimes. We are to forgive in the same way. That is, we recognize that Christ paid for our sin and we, in turn, absolve others of their transgressions against us by paying for it ourselves. Debt paid. End of problem.
In a biblical perspective of forgiveness, then, forgiving one person of a transgression against another ("I need to forgive my father for what he did to my mother" kind of thing) doesn't make any sense. Nor does forgiving myself make sense.
In our terminology, "forgiving myself" wouldn't be absolving myself from sin because I cannot. Instead, it would be recognizing the truth that Christ has already paid for my sin in full. It would be accepting in my mind and heart the truth of the forgiveness I'm already given. That's not quite "forgiving myself". But it does address the feelings of guilt. It accomplishes this, however, not by paying the debt ourselves (since we can't), but by realizing that it is a lie to have feelings of guilt for transgressions already paid in full. (Conversely, "forgiving myself" when I am not forgiven by God -- as unbelievers are not -- would be a lie. It might make them feel better, but they are not forgiven even if they've "forgiven themselves".)
This is what I write in my column at Studylight.org, Stan. Forgiveness belongs to God. Therefore, forgiveness comes through God.
But we do have to participate in it. We do have to let go of that anger, hurt, bitterness so that God can do His work... It's like the Children of Israel going out day by day and gathering manna for their daily meals. Just enough for the day.
I think God worked it this way so that we had to exercise our Spiritual muscles to strengthen our belief, faith, and even our understanding so in turn we would reflect God's glory in this dismal world.
Yes indeed we need to participate in it. We need to let go of the guilt, appropriate the forgiveness, live the truth. Absolutely.
My only concern is that if we begin to call that "forgiving" we might lose track of what "forgiving" really is ... because that is not. But, then, I have an ongoing and serious sensitivity to the meanings of concepts and ideas and the sad loss of them in modern society. :)
Quite correct,letting go as well as deciding that Satan won't "get your goat" so to speak by dredging up all those memories, is a first step.
Only God can forgive sins. But, Jesus did say Mar 11:25 "And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. 26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses."
It is like one harboring ill feelings toward another, forsaking mercy toward that person. The example is the steward who owed a million dollars to his master, but the master forgave the debt... then the servant went to the people who owed him money and he demanded payment from them disregarding the mercy shown to him.
Now, if we were to take this parable a step further, and look into that steward's heart, is he kicking himself feeling guilty for the "dirty deeds" he did and not showing mercy? Probably not because he was ultimately punished for his sin.
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