Forgiving Yourself (Part 1)

 As she sat on the other side of the desk in my office, a young lady named Cecily began to cry and weep uncontrollably as she recounted her life’s story. Cecily, a member of the church I was pastoring, was a single mom rearing two young boys. I had met Cecily and her family after coming to the church, but I did not know the details of her story. Cecily had recently made a decision to trust Christ as her Savior and Lord and she had come to meet with me to talk about her baptism. As she shared her story that afternoon she told of how she had had two abortions. The tears of regret, guilt and shame streamed down her face. Even though she had trusted Jesus as her Savior just a couple of days prior to our meeting, she was struggling to understand how God could forgive her for these two terrible choices. Part of her salvation testimony was about how she could no longer live with the guilt of what she had done. Yet, even after making a profession of faith in Jesus the guilt was still there. Cecily, like so many other people, wanted to know what she was supposed to do about the guilt.     

 “You’ve got to be able to forgive yourself.” A well meaning friend or counselor may tell you that forgiving yourself is the first step toward healing and recovery. The problem with this friendly advice is that it is unbiblical. Nowhere in the Bible do we find God instructing us to deal with our guilt and hurts in this way. Rather, God urges us to receive His forgiveness.

The need is for us to receive God’s forgiveness. Forgiveness reverses the sorrowful aftermath of an offense and sets right a host of things made wrong by the sin. “Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. It is something that only God can do.” Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary is sufficient to forgive every sin of ours. And that forgiveness includes the removal of the stain of guilt. Forgiveness is not something you can give yourself. Forgiveness is something Jesus has purchased for you. Therefore, we are not instructed to forgive ourselves; rather, we are instructed to receive God’s forgiveness and be free.

RECEIVING GOD’S GIFT OF FORGIVENESS

 The apostle John wrote, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1Jn 1:9). Therein lies the key to forgiving oneself. Let’s walk through this verse and understand what John is teaching us. This verse is a conditional statement … If we confess our sins then God will forgive us and cleanse us. This means that in order for us to experience God’s forgiveness and healing cleansing we must first confess our sins. The first step toward healing and recovery is not forgiving ourselves, but confessing our sin to the only One who can forgive us.

John teaches us that we are to confess our sins. The word translated for confess literally means “to say the same thing.” Therefore, confession of our sins is to say the same thing about our sin that God says about it. In confession we agree with God that our sin is sin. In our culture sin has become a bad word. People do not want to admit that their misbehavior is disobedient sin. Sin is referred to as a mistake, poor judgment or unfortunate circumstances. The effort is to redefine sin in order to shift the responsibility to someone or something other than ourselves. Yet, God’s Word teaches us that the first step to forgiveness and healing is to call sin what it is … sin.

The word for sin in 1 John 1:9 is the most commonly used in the New Testament which means to “miss the mark.” It is an archery term the presents a vivid picture of what it means to sin. God has a standard, the center of the bulls eye, and our disobedient behavior fails to hit the mark. Though we may only miss slightly, we still miss the mark even in our best efforts at being good.

If we will confess our sins by agreeing with God that they are sins, then God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The Bible describes God as being faithful and righteous in His response to our confession of sin. He responds based on His character and nature. God has promised to forgive us of our sins. Therefore, He is faithful to keep His promise and righteous enough to provide the forgiveness. God’s forgiveness of our sins is how God deals with our behavior or transgression. The word for forgive means to cancel. God cancels the debt of our sin and wipes it away never to be brought up again.

This is where too many people shortchange God’s forgiveness. Not only does God’s forgiveness deal with our sinful behavior by cancelling the debt of our sin, but His grace cleanses us from all unrighteousness. God’s grace deals with the sinful behavior by forgiving us and His grace deals with the shame and the guilt that comes with the sinful behavior by cleansing us and washing us clean of the sin.

God forgives us of the sin and restores us in our fellowship with Him. He provides a fresh start free of the guilt and shame of our sin! Sin that has been confessed to God is totally forgiven by Him, and any guilt we feel after that is a false guilt. False guilt is the Devil’s way of attacking us trying to prevent us from experiencing the total cleansing, healing power of God’s forgiveness. If the Devil can trap us in the guilt and shame of our sin then he knows that he can stall us from living for Christ and spreading God’s total forgiveness to others. After all, misery loves company.

[To Be Continued ....]