When Carol asked for an appointment, I had no idea what her problem was. It seemed that she and her husband were happily married and they had three beautiful children.
Carol came to the office and told me her tragic story. Twelve years earlier she had had an abortion and she was still plagued by feelings of regret and remorse. She lived in the ongoing grip of convicting guilt and couldn’t get rid of the awful feeling that she had done something irreversibly and terribly wrong. Her guilt dominated her thinking, robbing her of sleep and peace of mind. Attending church on Mother’s Day was pure hell for her.
Carol had tried many things to get rid of her guilt. She had tried to stop thinking about it, she had taken in foster children and adopted children. She had supported pro-life efforts but nothing worked. Carol knew there was no way she could go back and change what had happened.
I listened as she said, “I have asked God to forgive me, but I can’t forgive myself.”
A cultural issue
Carol is the product of a culture that has grappled with the need for forgiveness and, after rejecting the meaning of Jesus’ cross, has concluded that part of the process is to forgive ourselves. Again and again we are told we need to forgive ourselves. Oprah preaches it and so do many well-known evangelical preachers. Dr. Phil has a five-step process for forgiving yourself.
It sounds so spiritual and even biblical to talk about forgiving ourselves, but the concept has always troubled me. I believe it is time to set the record straight.
People ask, “Why is it so hard to forgive myself?” The answer is very simple; it is hard because it is impossible!
Why do we struggle?
We all have a desire to do what we can to set the past right and the attempt to try to forgive ourselves is part of this process. But we can’t change the past. This is the wonder of God’s grace. What we are incapable of doing, God does for us as an act of grace.
The Bible teaches that God’s forgiveness for any and all sin is available in Christ. It tells me that I must forgive others. But nowhere does the Bible teach or instruct me to forgive myself.
Only the person we have offended by our behavior can forgive us. When we sin, we sin against God and he is the one who offers us forgiveness. Based on what he did at the cross, he has paid the full price for our wrongs and when we come to him in faith, he completely forgives us. Nothing more is needed. End of story. It is as simple as that.
The Bible has two main teachings about forgiveness. First, every person needs to be forgiven for the things he has done that are morally offensive to God. The good news is we can be forgiven by God. Second, we are to forgive others. We are to forgive repeatedly and immediately when we are wronged. However, forgiving yourself is not a biblical concept and is found nowhere in the Scripture. It is an expression of humanistic psychology.
The struggle many experience comes in one of two ways. First, we misunderstand the completeness of God’s forgiveness. When we come to Christ, we are released from the guilt and grip of our sins. Our sins are erased. They are gone. John wrote, “I write unto you, because your sins are forgiven you for your name’s sake.” (1 John 2:12). The result of faith in Jesus is, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Second, even if we know that Jesus has forgiven us, we choose to wallow in the memories of our past behavior. As we continually relive our past wrongdoing, we reinforce our feelings of guilt. It leads us to believe we are not forgiven.
The devil loves it when we feel this way. The Holy Spirit brings conviction; the devil brings condemnation. Conviction is good; condemnation is bad. Conviction leads us to the Savior’s forgiveness. Condemnation leads to ongoing feelings of guilt.
The bottom line is: we can either believe that God has forgiven us and that he will “remember them against us no more,” or we can believe the devil’s lie that we are still guilty and therefore need to feel guilty.
The futility of trying to forgive yourself.
Living with ongoing feelings of guilt is debilitating, dangerous and destructive. And it is totally unnecessary.
This is the marvel of God’s forgiveness. He wipes the slate clean. He erases any record of our past mistakes. This is liberating, humbling and exhilarating. It’s what makes his grace so amazing. It causes me to rejoice.
The consequences of our sins may continue. There may be scars remaining. They may haunt us and fill us with remorse and regret.
When we fail to accept the completeness of God’s forgiveness and try to forgive ourselves, it may be that we are trying to fix the mess or right the wrongs that we created. But fixing our past problems is not a condition for receiving God’s forgiveness. And many of the situations we have created by our wrongdoing are not fixable anyway. The amazing thing about God’s forgiveness is that, even though Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together, there is still complete forgiveness,
So what do we do?
1. Embrace the completeness of God’s forgiveness. When I try to forgive myself I am saying the God’s forgiveness is incomplete.
At one time, guilt was a term used to describe the punishment and penalty for wrongdoing. When the full penalty was paid, the individual who had been guilty but who had paid the price, was free to go. The guilt was over and done with. The problem for many is that they refuse to accept that the guilt-price has been paid in full when Jesus died on the cross.
Accept God’s forgiveness. His forgiveness is not dependent on either our feelings or our perspective. Forgiveness is based on the objective facts of the cross, not our subjective emotions.
The devil wants you to believe that what you have done is beyond the scope of God’s forgiveness. But nothing is outside the scope of his forgiveness.
One day the Jewish leaders brought a woman taken in adultery. At the end of the scene, Jesus told her he did not condemn her. Jesus simply said, “Go and sin no more.” He didn’t say, now forgive yourself.
2. Forget the past. The apostle Paul taught the completeness of what Jesus did at the cross. If anyone could have struggled to forgive himself, it was Paul himself. He had persecuted and supervised the death of many believers. Yet Paul did not attempt to forgive himself. He reveled in the completeness of Christ’s work on the cross. Here’s what Paul wrote, “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, (Philippians 3:13).
Thinking about our past sins can be beneficial only if it leads to a greater appreciation of God’s grace and prods us to change our behavior.
There may be ongoing consequences to past activity that we need to deal with, but those consequences do not need to cripple us in facing life today. God’s grace and wisdom are sufficient.
Close your ears to your accusers. John wrote, “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” (1 John 3:19-20).
How do you rise above the devil’s scheme to have you grovel in a sea of self-pity and guilt? Focus on the grace of God. Refresh yourself in God’s presence. Meditate on God’s word.
3. Restore and make restitution where possible and leave the rest to God. Sometimes when we try to forgive ourselves, it is because of something that we did against God and we need his forgiveness. Ask him for his forgiveness and accept it. There is nothing more you can do.
Sometimes we do stupid or unwise things that we regret and wish we could undo. For example, we may have said something that has hurt someone. In these situations there are things we can do. There is a biblical pattern for dealing with these situations. It is not a case of forgiving ourselves but of implementing a process to restore a relationship.
Zacchaeus experienced Jesus’ acceptance and forgiveness. He didn’t doubt that, but he knew there were things he could do to make amends for his past. “Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” (Luke 19:8).
So, quit trying to forgive yourself. You can’t do it. Accept God’s forgiveness.
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