Forgive Yourself

   Jesus taught love, mercy and forgiveness.  He told those He healed to go and sin no more, forgiving them of their sins.  He did not condemn the woman brought to Him to be stoned for adultery; rather, He told her to “go and do not sin again.” (John 8: 11)

   Jesus’ ministry of forgiveness includes you and me.  He has forgiven and will forgive us for our many transgressions.  He gave up His glory for a while and became man to pay the price for our sins.  Why then do we have such a hard time forgiving ourselves?

   I think we believe that we are unforgivable in some way.  Maybe we think our sins are too great or too frequent for forgiveness.  To believe this is to fail to believe Jesus.  By not fully accepting His forgiveness and therefore forgiving ourselves we are telling our Lord that we know better than He does if our sins are forgiven.

   We are supposed to love as He loves and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  If we won’t forgive our own shortcomings how are we to forgive those of others?  Are we likely to offer true forgiveness to our neighbor when we don’t offer it to ourselves? 

   “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” (Isaiah 43: 25).  God not only forgives our sins He refuses to even remember them.  Think of the love He has for us.  He chooses to not even remember the sins we’ve committed against Him.  If our Lord makes the decision to forgive and forget our sins how can we refuse to forgive ourselves?  We need follow God’s example and forgive ourselves and do our best to put behind us the guilt of our past sins.  Until we do that we can’t share the loving, family relationship that God wishes us to have with Him. 

   We find ourselves in a circle of sin; we sin, we ask forgiveness but refuse to forgive ourselves.  Because we still cling to the guilt of our sins Satan tells us that we are unworthy of forgiveness.  We sin again by refusing to allow God’s forgiveness to put us at ease and the circle continues.

   We must believe in God’s love and unending mercy and forgiveness.  We must then forgive ourselves.

   “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.” (Ephesians 1: 7)