You Can't Forgive Yourself! by Myra Boozer

I have heard people say to a new Christian, “God has forgiven you, now you need to forgive yourself! That sounds easy enough. Have you ever tried it? I don't see myself having that ability to rid myself of the guilt. You will go around and around in circles with a sense of maybe I did and maybe I didn't forgive myself, with no real relief.

Truth is, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," Romans 8:1. When you allow God to forgive you and you receive His peace and His acceptance, the weight of sin and its guilt is lifted off your life. You should feel a release from the "forgive yourself" statement. If not, keep praying, allow God to do His complete work in you.

With many situations in our life, we may see that we come up short in what the Word says about right living. We can either go to the Lord in repentance or we can carry guilt and listen to that nagging voice of condemnation. Our confession and His forgiveness lifts our burden of guilt! Sometimes it's not necessarily a "sin" but a feeling of failure, error, mistake, or neglect. When we don't go to the Lord, sometimes Satan uses these BIG and little "boo boo's" to DESTROY us, filling us with guilt and giving us no way out.

As the guilt grows it becomes a weight and a hindrance to our testimony, all the while some may feel, "now I need to forgive myself." There are no walls, no barriers, or barricades to keep us from the cross on any given day. We are free to fall before the Lord and tell him all our feelings, allowing Him to deal with us, correct us and cleanse the guilt that tries to destroy us. This is the remedy for condemnation.

God gives a fresh new start with Hope and a clean slate with no guilt which Satan has used so viciously against us. The fact that we must somehow "forgive ourselves" is not possible. Satan is a liar and the truth is not in him. When God forgives us, He cast all our sins, guilt, and shame as far as the east is from the west. Only the Lord can take the Guilt away. We don't have that ability...

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things become new."  2 Corinthians 5:17