If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
Tears streamed down her face. Shame and debilitating guilt overwhelmed her. She felt as if her life was over. She knew about God’s grace, begged Him for it, even believed in it, but she couldn’t forgive herself. Disappointment and grief consumed her. The more she faced her reality, the more she was overwhelmed. She groaned, even uttered under her breath, “I can never forgive myself!”
And it was at that very moment she decided her future. Because of her perceived unworthiness, she sentenced herself to a self-made prison and resolved to spend the rest of her life walking in the shadows of “should have been” and “could have been.” “Forgive myself? Impossible!”
Awaking each morning, begrudgingly rolling out of bed, breathing that particular sigh of desperation, daily, and frequently declaring, erroneously, “That’s just how it is. That’s just how I am. I’ll never be able to forgive myself!”
This all too common narrative describes a destructive belief that lingers deep within the hearts and minds of so many souls in our world today. Maybe you’ve attached yourself to the same belief and have struggled for a new revelation of self-forgiveness. Maybe deep within your tired soul is the craving, and the hope, that freedom from your past will occur. Maybe you’ve sought God’s forgiveness, even “accepted” it, but in the same sentence continue to utter, “But…I could never forgive myself.”
And so it goes. Just like this woman, we perpetuate the same self-defeating belief when we reflect on the poor decisions we’ve made in our past. Like her, when we look deeply into the mirror of introspection, we grieve past decisions and current situations with the same fashioned shame and disbelief—at who we’ve become and what we’ve done—and feel that it’s futile to even contemplate forgiving oneself.
But here’s the plot twist.
God never gave us the option of forgiving ourselves. It’s not even a Biblical idea.
Nowhere in the Bible does it espouse and/or communicate forgiving yourself. There are only two types of forgiveness explained in the Bible: God forgiving us, and people forgiving one another. And, that’s it – nothing about forgiving oneself.
When we exclaim, “I can never forgive myself,” in essence, we’re declaring the work Christ did on the cross was incomplete. Isn’t that audacious? To believe that our sin is somehow more powerful than the work of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice is absurd. Our choices and past do not limit His power. The final authority is God alone, and He single-handedly conquered sin. Instead of calling Him a liar, for that is what we do when we fail to walk in forgiveness after repentance, we must believe Him at His word and trust that His voice of truth reigns supreme.
“I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.”
C.S. Lewis
But if we let God whisper to our hearts we would hear, “You’re redeemed, forgiven, restored, chosen and loved. God’s gifts of freedom and forgiveness are always an outcome of rejecting shame and self-condemnation that the enemy of our soul seduces us with. Instead of being consumed with our past, God asks us to be consumed with Him and His thoughts over us. He has given His life so that we can have a new identity—one that is found in His perfection. Comprehending that nothing we have done has surprised Him, and nothing will remove us from His love, God asks us to pivot. Instead of distancing ourselves, we must pivot into His arms of grace. We must approach Him boldly, with a heart fixed on Him.
The greatest “thank you” we can bestow our Savior is to walk in the freedom He offers us and reveal to the world the glory of His gift.
