Forgiving Yourself - part one

Forgiving Yourself

How to forgive yourself and why it’s so important.

Forgiving yourself is one of the hardest things to do. The other day, I finished teaching on God’s forgiveness in a small group of people. I felt pretty good about it. I presented what I thought was an “iron-clad” case for why God’s forgiveness is free and unconditional. When I asked for questions someone said, “I understand God’s forgiveness. I don’t have a problem with that. I just can’t forgive myself.”

In other words, my intellectual reasoning didn’t do the trick. There was something keeping her from forgiving herself… or more accurately, accepting God’s forgiveness for her.

How to Forgive Yourself

To live with an unending sense of guilt is a miserable way to live. I hate to see this in people and so over the next few posts I want to offer a few suggestions for forgiving yourself. So my first suggestion in this series is:

1. Understand that every person on the planet has fallen short.

We've all failed at something. No one is perfect. We tend to compare ourselves to people that look perfect. Their lives seem all in order. But trust me, as a pastor I know the backstory to many people and everyone has their dark side.

Even with this awareness, people still believe, against all reason, that they are the worst of the worst and deserve harsher treatment. They deserve to be punished, and often allow themselves to be mistreated for this reason. But the Bible tells us that…

There is no difference [in people], for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… Romans 3:23

We are all in the same boat. We have all failed God and fallen short of his standard of perfection.

I heard it described once as comparing an Olympic gold medalist swimmer to a novice swimmer.  In a pool, the Olympian stands out against the novice.  But put them both on the shore of California and tell them to swim to Hawaii and they will both fall short.  The size of the ocean is the great equalizer.  And the same is true of us all when compared to God. WE may see a difference, but to God we look the same.

In a court room some of our lives may be more illegal than others.  In a church, some of our lives may be more immoral than others.  But when compared to God, none of us measure up to his perfection.  No one can boast and no one can take undue guilt upon themselves because “there is no difference”.

God’s grace meets our weakness

The second part of the verse I quoted above is equally important. It says that …

“...God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins..”

Yes, we all fail. But more importantly, God forgives us and declares us righteious; that means he puts us in right standing with himself despite our failure. In fact, God sees us as perfect as Jesus. I know that’s hard to believe. But it’s true. It’s God’s gift to us.  It’s free. And it’s made possible – not because of what we have done – but because of what Jesus did for us. Who are we to object to what God has decided? 

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast…Ephesians 2:8,9

If we are put right with God based on what HE has done then no one should deny themselves God's forgiveness. It has nothing to do with YOU. It has everything to do with Jesus and that’s why we serve him.

I'll explore forgiving yourself more in days ahead.

Question: What makes it hard for you to forgive yourself?

Learn more about how to forgive yourself in my book, Starting Over… finding God’s forgiveness when you find it hard to forgive yourself.