Forgiveness

There’s something wild about God’s forgiveness. It doesn’t matter how spectacularly you screw up, he will always offer it. As Christians, we know this. We say it often, and we sing about it, we read about it. It can become such a common and normal thing, that we can lose sight of the forest for the trees.

I recently marvelously messed up. Immediately I knew what I had done was wrong, and immediately I cried out for forgiveness and repented. But I still lost sleep that night. I still felt sick to my stomach the next day. I continued to ask for forgiveness, I continued to repent. I berated myself for making such a stupid mistake. But then something outrageous happened. God told me to stop. Stop being so hard on myself, stop begging and begging for forgiveness. He told me he forgave me the first time, he heard and saw the repentance in my heart, and he wasn’t beating me up over it—I was. Again, this is something we as Christians regularly talk about, read about, sing about; how God’s slow to anger and quick to love, abounding in mercy and overflowing with grace.

I often strive to treat others this way, to be quick to forgive, to extend grace and love. So why can it be so hard to be that way towards ourselves? Yes, that’s right, I have a sneaking suspicion I am not the only one who beats myself up for weeks (months, years!) for things the Lord has long forgiven and forgotten. Why do I feel the need to keep bringing it up, to keep hashing through it, to keep feeling the shame? In part, this is because there is one who is known as The Accuser who seeks to kill, steal and destroy. He would love nothing more than to render me completely immobile, useless, to tie me up with guilt and shame.

And he tries. Oh how he tries! There are times when I am quick to deflect his accusations with the Truth, but there are also times when I listen and let the shame wash over me. I don’t know why sometimes I fight back and sometimes it takes me a while to realize I have the power to fight back, but the truth remains that I can fight back. That in reality, I am already forgiven of the things he tries to hurl at me. That no matter what ugly, rotting old sin he tries to accuse me of again, it has already been dealt with. The past is in the past. He has no new accusations. They are always the same, old, tired accusations.

So how do I overcome this? How can I quickly deflect his accusations every time? For starters, by being grounded in the Word. The times when I find myself listening to him are the times I find myself out of practice of reading the Bible. You only need to watch any nature show to know that the weak and sick are preyed upon first. If I am not feeding myself with the Word of God, it doesn’t take long for my thoughts and attitudes to take a nosedive. Another way I can overcome this is by simply believing God when he says he forgives me. I don’t know about you, but I find it easy to believe that God loves me and that he is faithful to me, committed to seeing me through, that he is for me not against me. Wouldn’t this naturally make me think that it would also be easy to believe he forgives me? It should be easy to believe. Maybe the reason is because I find it hard to forgive myself. If I can’t even forgive myself, why would God? But that is backwards thinking. In light of who God is, if he is able to forgive me, who am I not to forgive myself? Now that smacks of freedom right there!

The next time the enemy comes with his slippery accusations, all I need to do is point to the cross and say that Jesus died for my sins, now the Father looks on me and sees only Him because I am hidden in Christ. You can waste your breath all you want, but I am not listening. I AM forgiven, and because of God’s forgiveness I am also able to forgive myself.

And that my friends, is powerful stuff.

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” –Colossians 1:13-14