Forgiveness: The Gift You Cannot Give to Yourself

In my blog post "Surprised Goats," posted in here yesterday, I said,

"The only antidote for that fear is hearing the gospel from the lips of another over and over and over, ad infinitum. I say we need to hear it from another because that truth is easier to believe when someone else says it to us than when we say it to ourselves. It just is. 

"That, right there, is the primary reason for the need of a group of at least two or three! We must have continual outside confirmation and reassurance that the gospel is true and that we are safe and loved by God, or we will soon succumb to fatal doubt and die...or worse, we will revert to the default and fatal belief in the need to earn God's approval by being good enough, which is spiritual death."

Today I would like to talk about another primary and related need we have for each other:

Forgiveness. 

Even atheist psychologists will tell you that the need to be rid of guilt is basic. Unless we are severely mentally ill, everyone feels badly about things they have thought, said or done. 

The non-Christian advice is to "forgive yourself." That sounds right. The problem, however, is that we are not built to do that. The closest we are able to come to accomplishing that feat is to keep burying the guilt. I say "keep", because the guilt typically repeatedly  rises from the "grave." 

As inconvenient as what I'm about to tell you sounds, it is the truth: We are created in such a way that forgiveness, in order to be truly accepted, must come from the outside.

As a Christian, I recognize first and foremost that the only means of true forgiveness is found in Christ. The reality is that every wrong in the world is, at its heart, first an offense against God, and for that reason he is the primary source of the forgiveness for all offenses. It was for that reason the entire forgiveness operation, otherwise known as the Gospel, was established. Christ came to make forgiveness a thing. Outside of him, there is no forgiveness, only repeatedly buried guilt. 

That is, as I said, first and foremost. Following right on it's heels, though, is the fact that one of the most precious and important things that we get to do for each other as Christians is to forgive one another; but I'm not saying what you probably think I'm saying!

Surely, we need to be as generous with our forgiveness, when we are wronged, as God has been with us! No question! But that is not what I'm talking about here. 

What I mean is that, in the same way we need to hear the Gospel spoken to us from the lips of another, we also need to hear the words of forgiveness and absolution from the lips of another, which is simply applying the Gospel to one another!

Forgiveness is not only easier to believe when someone else says it to us than when we say it to ourselves--It is the only way we have a chance to truly believe it! And even then it will need to be spoken repeatedly. 

I'm not talking about a priest in a confessional booth, although the recognition of this genuine need was initially at the heart of that concept. I'm talking about the privilege and responsibility we all have as believers to offer that forgiveness to each other, to speak over each other the life giving words that, no matter what we have thought, said or done, we are forgiven because of what Christ did to make that forgiveness a reality. 

That privilege is granted to every single believer. We have every right in the face of any need to say to each other something like this:

"By the command of and in the stead of my Lord, Jesus Christ, I declare to you that you are forgiven of all of your sins in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Be at peace. You are loved."

I know, personally, the relief that those words can give. My hope and prayer is that, if you needed to hear those words spoken to you today, you will take them as your own. I speak them to you! And I pray that you will begin to find the freedom to ask for them as you feel the need, as well as the freedom to offer them to others.