What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done? What is the worst mistake you’ve ever made? What is the greatest harm you’ve ever committed to another human?

Do you have your list? Did the pictures in your mind come up faster than high-speed internet?

Most of us don’t have any trouble recalling the worst moments of our lives. I imagine that when I asked those questions, you not only recalled the “bad” things you have done, but you also reconnected to some feelings of shame and guilt.

A foundational truth of Christianity is that we come into relationship with God through forgiveness based on the work of Christ. We maintain the flow of fellowship both with God and man by confessing our sins and appropriating the purifying work of Christ into our daily lives.

While we may understand the role of forgiveness in our Christian walk in relation to God and to others, we may find it harder still to be aware of the need to forgive ourselves.

Woven into the fabric of our core belief system may be the unspoken, and often unrecognized, belief that refusing to forgive ourselves shows God that we realize what dirty rotten sinners we really are and agrees with God that we don’t deserve to be forgiven.

And while we are sinners and don’t deserve forgiveness apart from Christ, through Christ we become righteous and through his grace, we are offered forgiveness. Living in that forgiveness means that we acknowledge that God offers us radical, undeserved forgiveness and we cannot make ourselves more deserving of that forgiveness by holding ourselves prisoner to past mistakes.  Read more...

Enjoy this post? Share it with your friends by clicking the Facebook LIKE button..

Powered By Facebook Like Post Plugin