Moving in Past Your Past

I am certain that you are like me with respect to your own consciousness of sin in your life. It bothers you. It angers you. It embarrasses you. Sometimes it keeps you awake. At other times, it drives you into depressive sleep. It makes you dread looking in a mirror while at the same time causing you to think about yourself all the time.

I am sure that I am forgiven by God. I trust you are sure of the same thing. Intellectually accepting that we are forgiven is not the same thing as accepting His forgiveness emotionally. We still feel guilty. We have a hard time moving on from our own sins. We have a hard time forgiving ourselves.

Remembering our sins is not the same, though, as failing to forgive ourselves. Paul remembered his sins and even named them. “…I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man…” (I Timothy 1:13). He followed this statement immediately with these words, “…but I obtained mercy…” (I Timothy 1:13).

In his next letter to Timothy, he was even more confidant and self-assured. He wrote, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will give to me on that Day…” (II Timothy 4:7-8).

If there were ever anyone who could be understood for not forgiving himself, that man surely would be Paul! He actually participated in killing Christians! I have never done that and you have likely never done that. If he can learn to forgive himself, then surely, I can too!

The keys to forgiving ourselves may very well be in the words of Paul himself in I Timothy 1:12-17. Paul knew that it was only through God that he was able to move past his past, “Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me” (v. 12). Get busy, “putting me into the ministry” (v. 12). He acknowledged what he deserved when he said that God granted him “mercy…grace…faith…love” (v. 13-14). He knew that we are all sinners (v. 15). He admitted that God would still need to be longsuffering with him (v. 16).

-Mike Johnson