What if the person who needs to be forgiven is myself? What if I am the transgressor?
Forgiving ourselves is often more of a dilemma than forgiving others. After all, we have to live with ourselves twenty-four hours a day.
Perhaps some misdeed that I participated in years ago, even as a child, still haunts me today, causing a tremendous sense of inferiority and insecurity. “Can God forgive me for what I did? I caused so much pain to others that I’m just not sure He can pardon my iniquity. “My anxiety is dispelled only as I realize that I forgive myself on the same basis as I forgive others – through Christ’s forgiveness of my sins on the cross.
We forgive others because God no longer holds their sins against them. We forgive ourselves because God no longer holds our sins against us.
God had forgiven Paul through the sacrifice of His Son. Paul, therefore, had no right to not forgive himself, neither do you.
If you are a believer, you are a forgiven person. Worship God for His grace. If you turned to God for the forgiveness of your sins, come to Him for salvation by acknowledging His death for you and receive a full pardon for eternity.
Read: Philippians 3:4-16 – Let me address verses 9-14 “And be found in Him (meaning to be united with Christ by living Faith, which has as its object the Cross of Christ), not having my own Righteousness (in other words; not having any Righteousness which can be called my own), which is of the Law, but that which is through the Faith of Christ, the Righteousness which is of God by Faith: 10) That I may know Him (again referring to what Christ did at the Cross), and the power of His Resurrection (refers to being raised with Him in “newness of life” [Rom. 6:3-5]), and the fellowship of His sufferings (regarding our Trust and Faith placed in Him), being made conformable unto His death (to conform to what He did for us at the Cross, understanding that this is the only means of Salvation and Sanctification) 11) If by any means I might attain unto the Resurrection of the dead. (This does not refer to the coming Resurrection, but rather the Believing sinner being baptized into the death of Christ [refers to the Crucifixion], and raised in “newness of life,” which gives victory over all sin) 12) Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect (we can’t claim sinless perfection); but I follower after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. (Paul was saved by Christ for the purpose of becoming Christlike, and so are we!) 13) Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do. Forgetting those things which are behind, reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14) I press toward the mark (this represents a moral and spiritual target) for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (means the manner and means in which all of this is done, which is the Cross).
