The Other Side of Forgiveness

At some point in our lives, we are all going to be in a place of needing to receive forgiveness. And, as hard as it is to extend forgiveness, sometimes it is even harder to receive it – and harder still to forgive ourselves.

It’s important that we learn to humble ourselves and let the healing work of forgiveness have its way in our lives. With forgiveness, we can begin to find restoration. Without forgiveness, we fall into condemnation.

The song “How He Loves” offers these great lyrics:

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
And Heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way He loves.

The line that always gets me is this: “I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves.” It speaks to me of the fact that we can’t sit around beating ourselves up over things that may have happened in the past. We need to put those things behind us and focus on the things before us. We need to forgive ourselves. We need to understand that God’s love for us gives us permission to do that.

Romans 7:21 – 8:24 talks about this same concept. Paul here is complaining that, even though he wants to do the right thing, for some reason, he can’t stop doing wrong. There’s a battle between good and evil going on inside of him, and sometimes evil wins out. But, he goes on to say in 8:1 that there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. It doesn’t matter how many times we mess up – He’s always there to forgive us, and He never points a finger at us to condemn us. We need to learn how to offer ourselves that same grace.

Condemnation will drag you down. It will steal your joy. It will cause you to withdraw from the ones who love you. And, it will never bring restoration.

I’ll end with more wisdom from Paul. In Philippians 3, Paul says “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize…” What great words to live by! I don’t know about you, but I’m going to focus on living life to the fullest today rather than letting the past drag me down.