God Has Forgiven You, So Forgive Yourself

Key Verse to Read and Treasure:

He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us; as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west—Psalm 103:10-12 (NLT)

For Insight

God does not accuse. God forgives and separates our sin from us as far as the east is from the west. When God forgives us, he puts so much distance between us and our sin it cannot be found again, and we are not to go looking for it. Rummaging through our memory bank, digging into the recesses of our brain to remember what we did so we can beat ourselves up again and again. Once confessed and absolved by God our sin should stay right there. We are not to carry it around as we would an albatross around our neck or a heavy backpack, or pulling it behind us as a wagon, but release it to God where he will throw it into the sea (Micah 7:19).

The promise and nature of God is to forgive those who ask and repent but the nature and character of the devil is to accuse us, so we never forget how horrible we are; so, we are never free. The devil wants us to remember our sin, he wants us to feel badly about ourselves. He wants us to be bent over with guilt and shame and be uncertain about the forgiveness God has given. He wants to drive us so hard about our past sin we would stop looking to God, stop loving and if he can accomplish it, stop living.

I love football and there are two illegal strategies the refs don’t let get past them which are “Unnecessary roughness” and “Piling on.” When we are being beat up by the devil over sin we have confessed and repented, God is in heaven blowing his holy whistle saying “Satan, that’s Unnecessary Roughness, that’s Piling On!” The blood of Jesus has made it illegal for Satan to try any of those illegal strategies on us and we should be aware of that, so we don’t get trapped in his false accusations.

When David confessed his sin before God. God saw David was already beaten up, disappointed in himself, devastated by what he had done, spiritually defeated. As God says through Isaiah “A bruised reed I will not break and a faintly burning wick I will not quench (Isa 42:3).

In other words, God does not come to pile on or break us when we have sinned, he comes to love us back to health, restore us so we can continue our journey, humbled, but changed, and he wants us to forgive ourselves and live in the forgiveness he has given us.

Gracious Lord the hardest thing next to forgiving others is to forgive ourselves. Thank you, God, for forgiving our sin. Help us to reject the devil’s attempt to keep us bound and help us live in your forgiveness daily. Amen   

Apply:

One a scale of 1-10 (w/ 1 being “I’m still skeptical” and 10 being “I definitely do”) Do you believe God has forgiven your sin and are you living with certainty?