Too many are slow to forgive themselves. If you fall into this category or know someone who does, carefully consider the following points.
Why forgive yourself?
If you don’t, you cannot be trusted.
What does forgiveness have to do with trust? On one level, you won’t change; or at least, you will be slow to change. As long as you’re holding yourself accountable for what you did, you will tend to believe you’re the same person who committed whatever crime against God, even if it is ancient history. Your focus will remain on your past. Your tendency will be to gravitate to old behavior, because as a person thinks in his heart, so is he (see Proverbs 23:7). Some believe their behavior equates to who they are, thus, they think they’re bad because their behavior was bad. As long as one believes he is the same person, he will more than likely sabotage any positive progress he may have made. “Two steps forward, one step back,” or in some cases, “One step forward, two steps back.” Providing one fails to forgive his or her self, the questioning will be ongoing: “Will I ever change?” Whatever you believe to be true is correct. Unforgiveness does not allow change. It loves to keep people where they are!
Why forgive yourself?
Because if you don’t, you’re still on the throne of your heart, instead of God.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Think about it: God was not counting our trespasses against us! Love covers a multitude of sins, or as Proverbs 10:12 puts it: “But love covers all transgressions.” Because He loves you, He doesn’t hold your sin on your account. Yet, here people are, keeping their sins on their account, even though Jesus paid the price. Listen, justice was served for “what you did!” Jesus died on the Cross. It doesn’t seem fair that He paid for our sin, does it? But, that’s the way God decided it should be done!
Why forgive yourself?
Because you’re insulting Jesus Who suffered for you, if you don’t.
If He wanted you to suffer for your sins, you would not be reading this. Your worthiness will always be based on Him; not what you suffer! In essence, as long as you hold yourself in unforgiveness, it will always be about you, and not Him. That is a failure to glorify God!
Why forgive yourself?
Until you do, you cannot be trusted with the things of God.
Forgiveness is a foundational principle of the Kingdom. It is elementary. If you will not steward forgiveness well, how can the Lord trust you with more things? Not only that, you will have difficulty receiving more because you’ll still struggle with worthiness. “Look at what I did, I’m not worthy of that!” In your mind, everyone but you will be worthy of the things of God, even though, Jesus is worthy for you to receive possession. Are you there even now? In short, unforgiveness keeps people from receiving. Unforgiveness blesses no one! It desires everyone to remain under the curse.
Why forgive yourself?
Because it is the only way to make it up to God.
You cannot make things right on your terms; it has to be done on His. Do you suppose when Jesus went to the Cross, the idea behind it was forgiveness because He loves you that much? So yes, one of His terms is that we receive forgiveness. In truth, if you don’t forgive yourself, you’re not in a place of repentance. Repentance does things His way. Forgiveness is part of it. Repentance is a change in the way we think, which changes the way we behave. It is time to think differently about forgiveness. If you hold yourself in unforgiveness until you “suffer enough,” it is still on your terms. Guess what: that will never make up for anything!
