We all have regrets about something. Whether or not we should have made a certain choice in our life or how we treated someone. The guilt is more than we can bear at times. We turn to someone we trust that will give us some good advice which one of them can be a pastor who can give some solid Biblical advice until they say, "You need to forgive yourself." Where is that in the Bible? I know that God forgives us and we are to forgive those who sinned against us, but I do not recall God commanding us to forgive ourselves.
Mike Wilkerson talks about self-forgiveness in his book, Redemption, where he identifies five reasons that self-forgiveness is not only unbiblical, but can lead to pride:
1. A preoccupation with self-forgiveness is to consider yourself a greater judge than God.
2. Self-forgiveness exposes a heart that still looks to an idol for justification instead of trusting God.
3. Self-forgiveness is to believe that your sin is a bigger deal to you than it is to God.
4. You may feel unforgiven because you haven't honestly confess your sin to God
5. You might enjoy the feeling that all debts against you are cancelled except for the debt you hold against yourself.
Wilkerson quotes Tim Keller from Counterfeit Gods saying, "When people say, 'I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself,' they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important to them than God's."
"...A prime example of this worldly confusion concerns self-love. We have been told that this is a command rather than a condition. The Zeitgeist blew notions of this our way from the lips of popular psychologists and legions of their disciples.2 Suddenly, many Christians saw something in Scripture that no previous generation had seen. (Perhaps those saints who preceded us did not have enough sand in their eyes.) Soon, preachers in the pulpit and on the radio extolled the virtues of self-love. In fact, many said that Christ commanded it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
ReplyDeleteBut if we love God with all our heart, this supposition that there is a commandment to love ourselves will not ring true. And we find no such interpretation in standard commentaries.
Only one command stands here: Love your neighbor. How? “. . . equally with oneself.”3
This command recognizes that we live to our own self-interest. As Pascal noted, “The nature of self-love and of this human Ego is to love self only and consider self only.”4
In Ephesians, Paul based his instructions to husbands on the second great commandment. “So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself”(5:28). There is no question about whether a man loves himself. That is an accepted fact with respect to human nature. Furthermore, in marriage, the two have become one flesh.
Therefore, the human condition of love of self is to be extended to the wife. Paul states, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it”(v. 29). Whether we stub our toe or contract the flu, we take quick
measures to seek relief for ourselves. Or when we are hungry, we eat; when we are cold, we put on warmer clothing or turn up the thermostat. We do not require the distraction of some insipid, self-centered, psychological mumbo-jumbo about
loving our self. We just do it—and the point of the commandment is just this—we are to show the same concern and care for others that we naturally show to our selves..." from:
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Prayer-Forgiveness-Michael-Snow/dp/159467664X/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3