You Are Forgiven - Now Forgive Yourself!

I was recently asked the following question:

If the Bible says that if you don't forgive others, God can't forgive you, does that also mean that if you don't forgive yourself for something then God can't forgive you either?

Wow...that's quite a question.  But I think it's an issue more of us deal with than we realize or admit.

Some of you might be asking "Does the Bible really say that God can't forgive us if we don't forgive?"  The answer is yes.  It's found right at the end of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:14-15:  "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
  
Romans 8:1 says, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."

"OK, that's fine, but you don't know what I did.  I really messed up, and I knew better, and now I just can't get past it.  I wasn't 'walking according to the Spirit' when I did it.  So does this verse really apply to me?"

Let's look a little further into Romans 8 to answer that.  Romans 8:9 says, "But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His."  

If you're a Christian, if you've called on and received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then you are in the Spirit, not the flesh...even if that means you make mistakes from time to time.

So you see, God isn't condemning you.  When we sin, and we all have (Romans 3:23), we simply need to confess it to God, repent of it (turn away from it, reject it), and ask God to forgive us.  And the Bible says in 1 John 1:9 that "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."  If God has forgiven us, and He no longer condemns us, then what influence is keeping us condemned?

The Bible calls the devil "the accuser of our brethren, who accused them day and night before our God."   (Revelation 12:10)

The devil would like nothing more than to steal our future from us.  The easiest way for him to accomplish that is to keep our focus on the past.  Like driving a car, we can't successfully reach our destination by looking only in the rear-view mirror.  There's a reason that mirror is so small and the windshield is so large.  Paul said it this way in Philippians 3:12-14, "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

I love how Paul just laid it out there.  He didn't claim to be perfect.  He didn't claim to have it all together.  But the ONE THING he made sure to do is to let go of the past and move forward to the great future that God had created for him.   Instead of dwelling on past mistakes, Paul makes a conscious decision to move beyond it, forget it, let it go, and focus his attention on his future.

Yes, you need to forgive yourself.  And then let that stand. Don't allow yourself to keep bringing up old mistakes.  You're forgiven by God, He loves you and doesn't hold it against you, and He has a life and future planned out for you.  AND He is able to bring peace and stability to your mind so that you're not always feeling like there's a war going on in your brain!  So put your attention, affection, and energy into living life today as a confident and committed Christian.  There's no reason to let your past steal your future anymore!

The simple fact is that God loves you.  You are worth so much to Him that He sent His Son to die for your sins, so you wouldn't need to be separated from Him anymore.  Sounds like God has a whole lot more reason to want to hold a grudge against you for past mistakes.  But He's forgiven you, so you can too!  He sees you as He created you to be, not as you are currently.  Start looking at yourself the way He looks at you! 
 
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.          Philippians 4:8-9