Episode 932: Forgiving Yourself?
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 932 of the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:00:07] Caroline Boudreaux: [00:00:07] I'm Caroline Boudreaux. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasure to live out your calling. Having the ability to impact the lives of children is key.
[00:00:23] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.
[00:00:30]Scott Maderer: [00:00:30] they either look to themselves and say everything that I do doesn't really matter because I've forgiven. I have grace from God and therefore it doesn't matter whether I do things right or wrong, or they look to themselves and say, I am the worst center of all times. I don't deserve forgiveness.
[00:00:48] No one should ever forgive me for what I have done. And therefore I cannot forgive myself. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you [00:01:00] truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:01:11] We'll learn to invest in yourself. Invest in. And develop your influence so that you can impact the world
[00:01:20]today's spiritual foundation episode about impacting the world. I talk with you about why forgiving yourself maybe is it explicitly in the Bible, but it is biblical. I also share several passages from the Bible and how they reflect on this concept. And I share why forgiving. Can be way too easy are way too hard for many of us.
[00:01:43] I think for most people that have read the Bible, the concept of forgiveness makes perfect sense. It's in there all over the place in the Bible. It talks about us forgiving others. It talks about God for giving us, but what's never really explicitly [00:02:00] said anywhere in the Bible is about forgiving yourself.
[00:02:05] Making sure that you've forgiven yourself. If you are expressing a persistent and long-term guilt over something that has happened in the past or something that you have done to someone else that causes negative consequences for yourself, where you're constantly dwelling on this and you're worried about it and it's affecting your life and what you do, then you'll hear people talk about forgiving yourself.
[00:02:34] But recognize that again, that concept it's not explicitly in the Bible, there's not a Bible verse that says that you should forgive yourself, but all of this comes out of the idea. All of the forgiveness comes out of the idea of God's forgiveness for us. Whether you look at Romans or you look at Psalms or you look at Genesis, it's very clear that we have all [00:03:00] sinned against God and therefore we all need God's forgiveness.
[00:03:06] And that we have a grace that comes to us from God. That's not earned, it's not deserved. And yet it comes anyway that involves our forgiveness from God. For the sins that we have done, and those things are all true and that we need to look to God, to help forgive us for those things that we've done.
[00:03:31] And if you think about it, then where does the forgiveness of others comes from? If you think about Matthew chapter 18 verses 21 through 35, there's a parable about how a master forgives the day. Of one of his servants that is this unbelievable amount that the servant will never be able to pay back.
[00:03:52] And then the servant turns and demands that a fellow servant pay them back immediately a much smaller [00:04:00] amount and is very unforgiving of that servant owing. And the king says, shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as the mercy. I had UN to you. In other words, if God is giving us this UN deserved grace and mercy, then don't, we owe that to others as well, because the truth is there's no way that someone else can sin against us more than all of us can sin against us.
[00:04:30]And if you extend that a little bit, that just like forgiving others, we should also forgive ourselves for those mistakes that we will make. But instead we often hold on to them because we regret our bad decisions where we're more useful over those things that we have done that have hurt ourselves and hurt others and cause problems.
[00:04:54]And that those sins and those mistakes will come back up in our mind [00:05:00] time and time again, whether it's our own memory, whether it's the enemy working against us, whether it's other people, we continue to dwell on these things. And if we think if we don't forgive ourselves, then it'll keep us from making that mistake again.
[00:05:17] We can punish ourselves for our sins. But again, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says you can't earn your way out of sin. You can't make up for those mistakes by just punishing yourself and beating yourself up. In fact, it says we can't earn our way out of sin. That those sins are only forgiven by God.
[00:05:43]Forgiving ourselves means first admitting that we actually have sinned. We've made mistakes. We've done things wrong. We need help because we're not able to do it on our own. If it's a [00:06:00] way of stepping back from our own arrogance. And it's not transactional. It's not, if I do this, then you'll do that. It's about relationship.
[00:06:09] It's about becoming children of God. Bless inviting the holy spirit in and building ourselves in relation with God. It's not about ignoring. The pain. It's not about ignoring the problems. It's not about saying that the actions that we take don't harm others. In fact, if they have harmed others, it's about making sure that we do all we can to make those things right.
[00:06:35] But it's also about recognizing that redemption that comes is not through our people. But through God's forgiving ourselves can be really hard, especially if we've harmed people that we love because of that, but holding onto it and living in shame and pain and punishing ourselves, doesn't fix it either.
[00:06:56] The truth is if you think about Paul, [00:07:00] Paul was somebody who had been a persecutor of the church. He had gone out and killed and destroyed Christian. And then God said, I can use you and changed him. And because of that, he became a great missionary for God. And it was out of understanding that God had saved him.
[00:07:25] And that grace came forward, that Paul said things like here's a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance Christ. Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason, I was shown mercy. So that in me, the worst of sinners Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example, for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever.
[00:07:56] Amen. From first Timothy chapter one, [00:08:00] another words out of his sin became an avenue to glorify God. Know, Paul recognizes his own sinful nature. He recognizes that he has made mistakes. He even says that in some ways he's the worst of centers. And yet he continued to battle with that sinful nature. We all do.
[00:08:22] We don't suddenly become out of sin. And the interesting thing is most people have either too easy or too hard of a time for giving them. They either look to themselves and say everything that I do doesn't really matter because I've forgiven. I have grace from God and therefore it doesn't matter whether I do things right or wrong.
[00:08:44] Or they look to themselves and say, I am the worst center of all times. I don't deserve forgiveness. No one should ever forgive me for what I have done. And therefore I cannot forgive myself. We struggle with these things in the area [00:09:00] for many of us, but the truth is just as we should forgive others just as God forgives all of us.
[00:09:08] We need to learn to let go of those mistakes and yet still work to rectify them still work, to let the fruit of our spirit be good things and not sinful things. We'll make mistakes, we'll fall backwards, but out of those mistakes comes the chance to share our message in a way that is more authentic, that is more connected and that touches more lives.
[00:09:35] Thanks for listening.
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