The 28 Day Forgiveness Challenge — Day 15
I meet people all the time who say, “I know God has forgiven me, but I am having a hard time forgiving myself.”
Have you heard people you know say this? Maybe it’s something you are struggling with right now. If so, you are not alone. Many people find it difficult to forgive themselves.
I wish I could point you to a verse in the Bible that teaches self-forgiveness. The Bible never addresses the issue. Jesus never said to anyone that they need to forgive themselves.
When people speak of forgiving themselves, they are actually saying they want to let go of their past and all the fear, guilt and shame associated with their past. The Stanford Forgiveness project conducted by Stanford University suggests that we use “forgiveness to make peace with the past.”
They go on to say that “forgiveness may be, as the religious traditions have been claiming all along, a rich path to greater peace and understanding that also has both psychosocial and physiological value.”
The worldly path to self-forgiveness is paved with self-love, self-acceptance and self-affirmation, which sounds good and healthy, but it misses the point.
Forgiveness means being released from punishment due to sin. It’s rooted in God’s grace and holiness. It is God’s act in Jesus to satisfy his justice. God did not let your sins go unpunished. It is crucial that you know and understand this.
Forgiveness became yours the day you confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believed in your heart that God raised him from the dead. David painted the most vivid picture as to what this means: “…as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).
Forgiveness Challenge #15 -Consider this verse: “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many” (Hebrews 12:15). What is the answer? That we not miss the grace of God. The result of missing God’s grace is bitterness that causes trouble. Someone struggling to forgive themselves is a troubled person. They are troubled because they carry with them the stains of their past. In light of Christ’s finished work on the cross, are you willing to let go of your past?
A resounding yes and a big Thank you for this insightful release, a new understanding to unfold, that will become a trait in humility to me, God forgave me, therefore I am forgiven and so is everyone else, standing up in response and stopping the worry over what I might or might not do in future, whew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what a relief, thank you Yeshua, thank you Yeweh, thank you
Worry can go with all those sins as far as the east is from the west, Amen
Psalms 103:12. how is it we allow them back that brings worry, haste and stress, that is depression? How is it we at one moment know this truth, live it see it and in a split second, we step out of it and back into the dead flesh suit that we were in before we were saved by Father through Son?
Is it the world and its ways of grandeur in do good and you will get good? Yet the rain rains on all right, whether good or bad, it does not decide who is who, does it? Life here is plainly just not fair and the rain falls on whomever it falls, whether good or bad it does not choose as is taught to us to be good or else is it? I am not saying to not do right, I am saying do right by God, not by self or this worlds fantasies of: you will get good if you do good, what a façade, at least as what I see now after going through the surgeries I went through the last two years, for God never left me, never forsook me, and never caused what happened to me, yet God took this and is taking this to comfort me, and teach me to just trust God no matter what. Okay now I vented, and think better, thanking and trusting God as in Psalms 100:4
Thanks Bob I needed this post from you, God working through you
Thank you Howard. I appreciate your comments.