How to be Forgiven.
I didn’t make this up.
You messed up.
You’re guilty as charged.
What steps can you take to get yourself off the hook?
It isn’t easy is it?
Sure we can nag and pressure others to get them to say words to us, but even if they do, it still may not help.
It’s not about manipulating anyone.
It’s about guilt removal and sometimes these stains don’t come off easily.
So it can’t be a quick fix, this guilty feeling of ours. It’s a longer process.
We need a life transformation.
Not perfection, mind you, but honest efforts to improve.
Let’s first accept the reality that we can’t change or manipulate others without harming them and/or our relationship further.
This means one thing.
We need Gods forgiveness, not only first, but only. He is the only one who can take away guilt, and clean a soiled heart.
Here’s the good news.
He wants to and he has given us a way out.
It’s in the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray. You have likely heard and spoken it many times yourself.
. . . and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Matthew 6:12 (ESV)
It turns out that our redemption comes in giving to others what we are asking for ourselves.
This means we have to drop all our anger, resentment, ill-will, and hopes that others will get what they possibly so richly deserve.
This isn’t about forgetting.
It’s about cleaning our own souls by letting go of all the negativity baggage and giving it to God.
It’s allowing God to judge, and when we do, he forgives us. Until then, God is saying we really don’t understand our problem and are not ready to have our own guilt removed.