“… how much more when I am awake?”

It was raining.  I was driving.  I had been praying.  That is when I heard the Lord speak to my heart wonderful words of encouragement.

“… how much more when I am awake?”

It took me a little off guard, and didn’t make much sense at first.  But then I realized that I missed the first part. 

So He spoke again, “There was safety in the storm even while I slept… how much more when I am awake.” (see Matt 8:24-27)

No matter where you are in your life… no matter where I am…

If there is a storm you are in, or one that is beginning…

There are two types of forgiveness… and forgiving yourself isn’t one of them.

(I am going to build on concepts from This Post on Forgiveness…  from back in Dec ’11 so you might want to re-read it… before or after… it doesn’t matter.)

Forgiving yourself isn’t only not necessary… it’s unbiblical!

The “self-help” gurus tell you that in order to love yourself and be happy you need to forgive yourself… that you need to realize that everyone makes mistakes and that until you forgive yourself you really can’t be happy.

The only problem with that is that it is actually completely opposite of the Gospel.  It is a deception of the world… of the enemy… devised to prevent people from coming to repentance of their sins and accepting Jesus: Who, by the way, “hath power upon earth to forgive sins.” (Luke5:24)

We have neither the right nor the authority to forgive ourselves. 

The Bible speaks of forgiveness as being something we receive.  It is transferred from one to another.  It is an agreement to go back to before an offense.

The Two Types of Forgiveness are:

Not receiving is robbing

I have been in that place where I was in need and I felt like I had no one to turn to.  I remember a day when about 13 years ago, I was out of gas, and didn’t even have $5 to put in the tank.  So, rather than ask anyone for the money I walked the 6 miles to work.

I can come up with a lot of reasons as to why I would… I can make them sound good… I can make myself “right”… but in the end it was just my pride.

And not the pride that is the first thing that comes to mind… the one where you don’t want anyone to see you as a failure… this one was worse…

It was a resentful pride… a pride that said, “I would never take anything from them.”