1575 Now Forgive Yourself

How hard is it for you to forgive yourself? Are you carrying around the guilt and shame of something you did years ago, and it still eats away at you? Here’s what God asked me to say to you today: “My girl, I forgave you the moment you asked for forgiveness. Your feelings of unforgiveness toward yourself do not come from me. Those are not holy thoughts. My Son set you free from all of that, now I desire for you to walk in freedom.”

Guilt and shame bring us to God. However, continued guilt and shame make us hide from God. That’s why the enemy works overtime in reminding you of your shortcomings, because those reminders make you feel unworthy of God’s goodness in your life. We are NOT to accept the enemy’s reminders and allow our minds to be flooded with our past mistakes. See that for what it is … that’s Hell’s attempts to lessen the power of God’s complete forgiveness in your life. The next time Satan tries to bring up something you’ve already sought forgiveness for, you tell him with the authority given to you in Jesus, “NO, I’M FULLY FORGIVEN AND THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN TAKEN FROM ME. YOU DON’T GET TO BRING IT BACK!”

Psalm 103:12, “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.” Do you understand the distance between the East and the West? It’s not thousands of miles. It’s not even light years. It’s infinite. The east never meets the west and the west never meets the east. And this is the picture of how far God has removed your sins from you. They’re gone. All the way gone. Infinitely gone. Eternally gone. And you have absolutely no right to go digging for them again.

Girl, stop bringing it up.

I used to bring up the same old sin to God over and over again. 20 years later I was still allowing guilt and shame to eat at me. I would continually come back and ask God for forgiveness over the same thing and assume that any bad thing happening in my life was some sort of punishment for my old sin. One day, I was in the shower, rehashing my failure and disqualifying myself from future opportunities, and it was so clear … God said to me, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I have no record of this. Please stop.”

Oh … God really DOESN’T WANT YOU TO WALLOW IN REGRET FROM PAST SIN. He removed it from you so you wouldn’t carry it into your future. So, we have to let it go! He’s already removed it. It’s already been erased from your record. You’ve already been washed clean. You’ve already been deemed “not guilty”. Stop brewing in the court room of condemnation, convinced you weren’t supposed to be forgiven.

Romans 8:1-2, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because Jesus has set you free!” Condemnation is guilt with coming punishment. And God says because of Jesus, we are not guilty. Because of Jesus, we are not subject to punishment. Because of Jesus, we are forgiven. Now, we must forgive ourselves! Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Guess who is included in the list of people you should be kind and compassionate towards? YOU! Guess who needs you to forgive them as well? YOU! Why? Because Jesus already did!

Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” God is standing with you. Get that mental image. He is standing with you because he is 100% for you. There’s not an ounce of God that is against you, and nothing that could convince him to be.

But wait … there’s more! You not only have God standing with you,