tabletalk said:
From bbyrd009: "....recognize that Christ certainly forgives you, but you also have to forgive yourself, and you will not be able to do this if you have spent your life protecting your ego. Yes, you are forgiven; and you are the one responsible for seeing to it that burning coals are not heaped on your head. Satan has confidence in the Gospel, too, much more than us, surely. So what."
I have read this other places, maybe many times, that "you also have to forgive yourself". Can you make a biblical case for that statement? Is it a command I have missed, and am I sinning by not following it? Or maybe it is a psychological truth?
it is likely the "double-minded" person in Scripture, and my guess is that it does not even apply to you, practically speaking, at least not anymore. At least not unless you can put yourself in the position of needing grace from someone you might consider an enemy or adversary, and imagine what accepting a glass of needed water from them might feel like (psychologically, yes, which is also "spiritually" in this case imo).
Another reflection might be that of a naif, an innocent person, who does not recognize sarcasm being directed at them, perhaps. Iow you might be having trouble identifying with someone having burning coals heaped on their heads simply because you are not the type of person who cultivates enemies, and you are not vindictive, so the analogy is lost on you. It would be like trying to explain evil to a little child iow.
So perhaps it might suffice to say that someone with a guilty conscience, or who feels ashamed of something, does not so easily lose this shame and guilt as is often portrayed. A person playing at believing in Christ, who does not adhere to the Biblical mandate to seek forgiveness from the one they have sinned against, but instead consoles themselves with a penitent prayer before bedtime, perhaps, fully planning to perpetrate the same sin upon someone else, if not the same victim, may easily blind themselves to the reality that they are, say, now avoiding this person that they have sinned against, not realizing that in not making it right they have now given this person a power over them so to speak. And this person may likely have already forgiven them, see, but that is not keeping the guilty party from avoiding them, in this scenario. Of course it is easy to just verbalize that they are not avoiding anyone at all, even as everyone around might be in agreement that they certainly are.
This is quite likely how the same God Who would ask "Who told you that you were naked?" is going to be "avoided," in a sense--not because of condemnation, but because of guilt and shame at not having done the right thing. The Light will not be comfortable, iow, because they crave the darkness, that there sin may remain "hidden."
Of course there are old guilts and shames that we cannot practically remedy by confession to the affected party, etc, i am still tortured by a lizard i threw in a fire when i was like 12 years old, but on another level i accept that the important thing is i am remorseful now, and would not do that now, and that i am forgiven; iow i accept that Grace covers this "sin." Which i wish i had picked one dealing with another person, because once you accept this grace, you imo will inevitably get to experience it from the other end, someone committing the same sin upon you, and then fading into the future, never to be seen again after a couple of avoidances, perhaps, or none, which is a test of your acceptance of Grace as well as usually a profound bit of cognitive dissonance for the offender, when you do not react as they expected or whatever. But of course if you are forgiven a huge debt, and then go throttle someone for $10, you have failed to understand the principle.
