Freedom Through Forgivenessنموونە

Keys To Forgiving Yourself

Avoid the Fight to be Right

Deep down, inside all of us, is a desire to be right. We don’t like to be wrong, and we sure don’t want to be proven wrong. If you are too busy trying to see why everyone with an opposing opinion is incorrect, you will not be open to the possibility that you could be wrong and that you need forgiveness.

What if God had the heart of a person who insisted on being right? If that were the case, He never would have sent His Son, Jesus, to die for us.

Remember that You Are Not Perfect

Nobody is perfect. We have all held onto thoughts that we would be ashamed of if others knew. One way we justify not forgiving ourselves is by thinking, "I should have known better, I am bigger than that, I am disappointed in myself." Well, let’s set you free from this thinking.

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." - Romans 3:21-24 ESV emphasis added.

Verse 23, the underlined section, has been used in the wrong context on many occasions. This verse is not to be used to defend your sin when someone calls you out on it; this verse is here to let people know that you are righteous because of what Jesus did. It’s a reminder that says, "Hey, you are not perfect by actions. You are not that good."

We will make mistakes. We all have knowingly done wrong. We need to stop holding ourselves accountable for the mistakes that God already forgave us for. That is putting yourself in prison and keeping yourself there.

Unreasonable Expectations

Another reason we sometimes struggle to forgive ourselves is that we hold ourselves to unreasonable expectations. This likely stems from our past. It may come from your parents, a teacher, or even your older siblings. I have experienced both the positive and negative aspects of expectations.

You are more than your parents’ expectations.

You are more than the success someone else has achieved.

You are more than where you think you should be in life.

Don’t allow your expectations, or those of others, to influence your perception of yourself.“See yourself as God sees you, and do not compare yourself to those around you.”Those are better for your life than the expectations you give yourself.

Receiving Forgiveness

Everyone has done something to hurt others. It may not have been intentional or malicious, and you may have thought that you were helping, but our intentions don’t always turn out the way we hoped. I said all that to say that we need to learn to forgive ourselves.

"As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us." - Psalm 103:12 ESV

As a teenager, my youth pastor began preaching on this issue one day. I had heard the verse before, but on this day, it struck me as if I were hearing it for the first time. I said to myself, “God Himself doesn’t remember my sin, so why am I beating myself over the head about this mistake? If He doesn’t hold it against me, I need to stop holding it against myself.”

I would love to say that I left that service, never dealing with it again, but I still dealt with it. However, instead of allowing myself to get into shame and pity, I repeated this verse every time I was tempted to feel shame. One day, I said, "I forgive myself!" After I said that, it was like a burden was lifted, and I was free.

When I believed in my heart that God forgave me, I believed that I could forgive myself.

If we struggle to forgive ourselves, we should remember that God has forgiven us. We learn how to love ourselves by learning how God loves us. You don’t have to pray for five hours to forgive yourself! You don’t have to make yourself pay for your own actions to "earn" forgiveness. You don’t have to earn something that is already paid for. Jesus paid the price so that you don’t have to.