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:

The Forgiveness of Man: where someone agrees with us that we have wronged them, but chooses to forgive us.  It is not always given.

And

The Forgiveness of God: where we agree with God that we have sinned against Him and He forgives us.  This ALWAYS happens.

Forgiveness – going back to before – is the kingdom response to confession of sin.  Sin is when we dishonor (do not esteem, render what is due, value) God or man.

We are called to confess our sin toward God and He will be faithful to forgive us our sin. (1 John 1:9)

We are called to forgive those who come and confess their sin to us… and I am not talking about ALL their sin, I’m talking about the sin against us and us alone.  (Matt 18:21)

We are called to confess our sins to one another, and even to leave at sacrifice at the altar and make things right with the ones we have wronged. (Matt 5:24)

We are even called to tell people when they have sinned against us (Matt 18:15), so that they may be able to receive forgiveness.   Unfortunately, they don’t always receive that.  They do not recognize that sin we commit without knowing it still counts. (Matt 25:41-46)

But we are never called to forgive ourselves, because in doing so we dishonor both God and those whom we have sinned against (man). 

Self-forgiveness dishonors God.  And therefore it is sin.

David said, “For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin [is] ever before me.  Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done [this] evil in thy sight:” (Psalm 51:3-4)

We are called to acknowledge our sin… to confess it… and to repent of it.

Think about it… for you to have committed something that you feel you need to “forgive” yourself of in the first place means that your judgment cannot be trusted.  So what makes us think that we can rightly say, “Oh… that’s OK… I didn’t mean it… I forgive myself… so deal with it!”

The enemy continues to bring the deception of self-forgiveness to us because he does not want us moving forward in grace.

If you feel like you can’t move forward because something isn’t right… follow the instructions of scripture…

Confess to Him… if you’ve done something to dishonor Him.

Confess to others… if you’ve done something to dishonor them.

Forgive those who have confessed to you.

And… give others who have sinned against you the chance to confess (say along with, agree with) by telling them what they have done so that they can be forgiven.  And realize, please, that most of the time… they won’t agree.  They will defend themselves.  But you will be able to move forward knowing you did what He asked of you.

SDG