Christians Must Forgive Themselves

“For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.” (Job 3:25)

Did you know that there is now agreement among scientists that the very fear of a certain disease, such as cancer, may have a lot more to do with why we get it than we ever suspected?  God has known that since he breathed life into us and tried to teach us that very lesson through the life of Job.

Isn’t it strange that while science and religion fight to convince us that no common ground exists on which they may stand, science has proven that God’s word was right all along? Indeed, as God told the prophet Isaiah: “So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth.  It shall not return to me void.” (Isaiah 55:11)

I remember one particular fear of mine when I began my ministry.  I was convinced that the columns I wrote would eventually end up in the wrong hands and be used by people as a source of darkness instead of a source of light.  Newly saved Christians see it all the time.  The skeptics who knew us “the way we were” have a hard time believing that such a radical change could take place.

It wasn’t too very long after my column began appearing in several newspapers that I saw the above verse played out in my own life: Fear became reality.  I was shopping near a community where I once lived and ran into a former employee who told me that one of my columns had shown up in her office.  While she was complimentary about the change in me, I sensed her disbelief.  What could I have said to see that look on her face? I rushed home to read the column she mentioned in an effort to figure out what was in it at which anyone could take aim. I then realized that God was testing my newfound faith.  Maybe others couldn’t put my past behind me, but if I really had found forgiveness at the Cross, then I had to forgive myself and move on.

If we turn to God’s Word, we have no trouble finding similar circumstances in the life of other believers such as Job.  In fact, Paul, while in prison, wrote a letter to the church of Philippi and gave some great advice to those of us who are trying to convince others that the past is the past. “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended. But one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)

There is no doubt in my mind that Paul understood what it was like to have a haunting past.  He killed Christians for the pure sport of it before he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.  Paul knew that he could never outrun his past.  Wherever he traveled, there would be those who would inevitably raise doubts about the change in him.  But God through Paul tells us that we are “a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

The same is true with any Christian. Wherever we go, the consequences of the sins that we have committed, before and after salvation, will follow us.  But we cannot allow Satan to use our salvation to turn others away from Christ.  We, like Paul, must forgive ourselves and then move on. Indeed, we should hold on to God’s promise that we are “born again,” but we also must be ever mindful of what Jesus promised about how the world may look at us after salvation: “Most assuredly, I say to you, we speak what we know and testify what we have seen, and you do not receive our witness.” (John 3:7, 11)