Most families have recipes that are handed down from generation to generation…and many times in those recipes there’s a secret ingredient that is crucial for the recipe to work.
I believe it’s the same thing with our Christian walk. There are certain ingredients that are critical for things to work. Without them, it just doesn’t work. One of those ingredients is self-forgiveness.
Notice I’m not just saying “forgiveness.” I think sometimes it might be easier to forgive others than it is to forgive ourselves. The Apostle Paul had a personal revelation about this in his life, sharing it with the Philippians in his letter to them:
“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” – PHILIPPIANS 3:12-14 (NLT)
Focusing on This Secret Ingredient
What secret ingredient did Paul focus on? Forgetting the past…forgiving himself.
What does forgetting the past involve? For Paul to fulfill everything that God had called him to do, he had to come to a place of forgiving himself.
See, prior to becoming a Christian, Paul was known as Saul, a zealous Pharisee who was so dedicated to stopping the spread of Christianity that he persecuted believers, hunting them down house-to-house and being responsible for many of them being thrown in prison for their beliefs. He was probably responsible for some of their deaths as well.
Saul had an encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-20). But what would have happened if Paul – after being preached the Gospel by Ananias – said to God, “Thank You God for showing me all these things, but I just can’t get past what I’ve done…I turned Christians over to be imprisoned and killed!”
What if Paul had gotten hung up on his old life being his identity…who he was? What if what happened in his life had more focus to him than what Jesus did for him? Christ Jesus dying on the Cross for him mattered way more than what happened to him or through him in his life!
Paul’s single point of focus was to forgive himself so that he could move forward and be who God knew him to truly be! I believe it’s the same for many of us as Christians: We see our sin and all the times we have fallen short, and we feel unworthy. We feel like we don’t deserve God’s goodness, peace and forgiveness in our lives.
Paul learned that his self-righteousness – both what he thought was so righteous about himself as well as the shameful actions he did – paled in comparison to the righteousness of Christ. Once he realized that, he was able to move onto the life God had for him and to be all God created him to be!
How about you? Ready for the secret ingredient of self-forgiveness?
To watch the Nov. 14, 2021 message on which this post was made, CLICK HERE.
