Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday November 19, 2008

I spend a lot of time attempting to help people who have really blown it and I mean bad. The first step is to help them acknowledge the sin, even to the point of having them write it down, list who it hurt and an explanation of why it is wrong. This can take a while and is often very painful. But it sometimes accomplishes a necessary step in being right with the Lord.

After the above, the real battle begins. After accepting the scripture, most can accept forgiveness from God through faith in Christ, but then the most repeated phrase I hear is simply,

"I know Larry, but I just cannot forgive myself."

When we make a mess it is hard to come to grips with the act, for we love to believe way down deep that we are much better than the act, whatever it is, shows us to be at the time of the transgression.

The truth is whenever we sin against others, we also are sinning against God, who is known for His forgiving nature, and we also sin against ourselves and we are not known to be all that forgiving. Oh, sure we forgive those who commit little sins against other people. But, we have a tougher time forgiving those who trespass against us personally. I know one man who often talked to prisoners and bragged about forgiving bank robbers, con artists and other malefactors, but when the girl who cleaned his house snitched a dime store necklace he went ballistic and to this day, 20 years later if the event is mentioned he still gets all red in the face and goes off on a tirade. Jesus taught us that is good to forgive the above mentioned offenders, but it takes real grace to forgive those who "trespass" against us personally. Yet forgiving those who sin against us must be done and it can be by submitting to what God says about it.

The toughest person to truly forgive is yourself. Arthur Davison Ficke wrote:

"A man MUST learn to forgive himself."

Here is the rub: we are able after learning about how and why God forgives us for trespassing against His revealed will to accept His forgiveness. We are further able to forgive those who trespass against us. Why then are we unable to forgive ourselves? Simple, we fail to learn that when God forgives for sins against Himself and others, He expects us to use the reasoning based on Scripture to apply forgiveness to ourselves.

We are told the Bible is a mirror and as such is to be used to check on our own actions etc. Thus, the Bible shows us that we sin, and that God forgives us. When we fail to forgive ourselves we are placing ourselves in a higher position than God. This will not work. We MUST learn to trust God, and if He forgives me, I am NOT higher than God, therefore I Must forgive myself, for He has made provision for this forgiveness.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2008 Use with credit.

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