Forgiven by Thomas Blackshear II
One of the most crippling phrases we face as believers comes from today’s pop-psychology world. It raises to a level of foremost importance the need to forgive ourselves. With the rise of such thinking comes a refocusing of our efforts to actually deal with offenses towards others to a more introspective, pseudo-spiritual self-forgiveness.
Does the Bible tell us that God expects us to forgive ourself? To put it plainly no. In fact, the Bible’s aim is to encourage self-examination but not self-forgiveness since sinful man always acts to gratify rather than harm the flesh. Without Christ, we are not offended by our actions but by God’s action to rule what we do as harmful to others and offensive to Him. Read the rest of this entry »
