Forgiving Yourself - Forgivng Others
The Spirit of God has put on my spirit to discuss the importance of forgiveness; to others and ourselves. A message shouldn't be preached just to preach; it should be a message the Spirit of God puts on your spirit to minister to the needs of the people. You might not need this forgiveness message now, but you will some time in your life.
People have faults. You can identify a fault of another person and you may even have a need to address it, but the Lord does not want us to turn that into criticism. There is a difference between identifying a problem or fault in a person and having disdain for them because of that fault.
"Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions.". Mark 11:25-26 (NASB)
Notice that verse 25 leaves absolutely no "wiggle" room. Anything against anybody - that includes anything that anyone would ever do. "But you don't know what they did to me," is not included in that verse. Do you know what the word "anybody" is in the Greek? It's anybody and everybody. When you don't forgive, grace is lifted and the enemy begins to strangle areas of your life. When you have un-forgiveness, you are holding someone else by the throat, while at the same time without realizing it, you are giving the enemy permission to grab you by the throat.
Keep in mind Jesus said whatever you sow is what you reap and the measure or manner in which you sow, is the measure in which you will reap. We can all agree that to get prayers answered and to get the mountains in your life to move, there has to be this element of forgiveness in our hearts; there has to be. You know you have completely forgiven someone if you can treat them the same as you did before they ever did you wrong.
We also must forgive ourselves. We've all had some sort of failure in our life. The devil is out to defeat or beat you down. You are going to have flaws, make mistakes, and use poor judgment somewhere, sometime, or someplace in life. You have to get over it. It's not beneficial to walk around the rest of your life beating yourself up. You can get away from others, but you can't get away from you. You have to forgive yourself, pick yourself up, and get on with what God's called you to do.
King David made a mistake and committed murder. How did he live with himself? I believe King David was thinking about the lamb sacrifices of Israel. They were a type of the blood sacrifice of Jesus, which was sufficient evidence for him to know he was forgiven. His sin was wiped out. You can't say your mistake didn't happen when it did; but you can say you are forgiven. No one can hold it over your head, because you have been forgiven. So stop beating yourself up.
How do you think Peter felt after he denied the Lord three times, just like Jesus had told him he would? That had to devastate Peter. Matthew tells us following Judas's failure that he hanged himself. Contrast that to the fact that Peter wept, but he didn't hang himself. Peter recognized what he had done. He didn't lay there in the dirt - you can - but you don't have to. You have to take what belongs to you in the gift of Jesus, the sacrifice of the blood that was shed, and actually apply it. Say to yourself - if this is real, then it has to work for me. So whatever happened is forgiven.
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9 (NASB)
The Bible won't do you any good just sitting on a table. It will only do you good when you get it in your heart. Now that you have read this article if your feelings say you're a failure, what are you going to say? In Jesus I'm not a failure. When your feelings tell you someone is a fool, you're going to say, "No, no, I forgive them, God forgives them, and my feelings don't matter." What do our feelings have to do with the truth? The truth is they're forgiven, I forgave them, and that's how you win. The blood of Jesus works, you're cleansed, forgiven, and righteous; let that blood wash you continually.