‍Jo Vitale [00:00:35] So welcome to the podcast where we invite you to Ask Away. Hi friends, welcome back to Ask Away. I'm Joe Vitale. I'm here with Vince. And we are especially glad that you're tuning in to this week's episode because today we're going to be talking about a topic that not only sits right at the heart of the Christian faith, but it's one that is just deeply personal and relevant, I think, to every single one of us. Believe me, if you haven't felt the weight of this question in your life yet, you are going to have to work through it at some point. And the question today is this: I know that God has forgiven me, but how can I learn to forgive myself? And let me just put my hand up right at the beginning and say that this question in particular has been such a central one for me throughout my Christian life. And not even just at one stage either. You think you sort of learn something one time, but then something else comes up later in your life and you find yourself having to walk through it again. 

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[00:01:36] And I know that for a lot of you this has been weighing on you as well, because actually several people have written in to ask different variations along this same theme. A lot of people are asking questions centered around the issue of forgiveness and particularly how do I experience forgiveness for myself? And I wonder in part if it's because it's a really timely question for us. We're living in a culture that is giving off a lot of mixed messages at the moment about the topics of judgment and forgiveness. On the one hand, we see people being called out all the time for one injustice or another. And it's very much the message of our society today, that it is right that people be held accountable and judged for their misdeeds because otherwise where is the justice if we don't hold others accountable? And particularly there's a feeling if we rush too quickly to forgive, then there's this deep seated fear that not only are we empowering others to continue harming people because they don't seem to be consequences, but we're also unfairly putting the burden on victims to forgive rather than the wrongdoer to make amends. 

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[00:02:38] There's a lot that can be said about that. There's a big discussion we could have. That's not actually the focus of today's episode, but on the other hand, and this is where we're kind of focusing today, I'm seeing at the same time this language of needing to judge others. That typically when I'm online, I keep coming across these blogs or post or threads talking about the necessity of self-forgiveness, of letting go of your past and not beating yourself up about it, of how important it is for our mental health and our wellness and our peace of mind that we don't shame ourselves or let other people shame us for our choices or decisions that we've made. And so when we kind of take these two together, it can be easy to come away with the impression that when it comes to yourself, you're supposed to just let yourself off the hook. It's your duty to forgive yourself. In particular, it's important not to allow anybody else to judge you. But then when it comes to other people, forgiveness is culturally offensive and problematic and is best avoided altogether. 

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[00:03:30] Sometimes I get so crazy because I kind of feel like the slogan I'm hearing from today's culture could be put this way: forgive yourself but never others. That seems to be the messaging that we're getting a lot. But when I take a step back and think about that, whether it's like politically or culturally, relationally or personally, it just sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn't it? And so perhaps it's in part in response to this constant messaging, this confusing messaging that we're getting around forgiveness and particularly around self-forgiveness, that I loved how one of our listeners, Theresa, she's fleshed out this question. And she wrote it in this way, she has asked, is the need to forgive yourself biblical? Isn't saying I'm having a hard time forgiving myself the same as saying what Jesus did wasn't sufficient? Isn't this thinking adding to Jesus finished work on the cross? Those are really thoughtful questions. 

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[00:04:24] My hope is that we can tease out some of those thoughts and specifically perhaps some of the ways that we're using language around this topic as we engage with that broader question of not only how do we forgive ourselves if this is an area that we're really struggling with, but Christian speaking, should we even be forgiving ourselves? Is that something as Christians that we're called to do? And there are a lot of places we could dive into this big conversation, but we're actually going to start there with that question of what does it even mean to forgive yourself? And as Christians, is that something that we have the right or power or ability to even do? Vince, what do you think? 

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Vince Vitale [00:04:59] Yeah. Thanks so much, Teresa, for your question. And Jo and I say your name completely differently. I say Teresa and Jo says Teresa. Or you say Jo? 

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Jo Vitale [00:05:10] Teresa. 

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Vince Vitale [00:05:11] Teresa. So there's a very high chance that we will get your name right half of the time.

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Jo Vitale [00:05:17] I'm so sorry. You may be British or American or something else entirely. 

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Vince Vitale [00:05:18] That's right. I might be wrong, but either way, we really appreciate your question. It really made us think. It was kind of phrased in a really incisive way. And it did make us realize that this idea of forgiving oneself or self-forgiveness, it can be a confusing concept. This idea of sort of giving something to yourself, to give something it seems like you need to already have it. You need to have it in order to give it. But if you already have it, then why would you need it? You already have it. How can it be given to you? So it's sort of paradoxical. It seems a bit like paying yourself or giving yourself money. Like you took money out of your left pocket and you put it into your right pocket. You haven't really given yourself anything. It was already yours if you had it. But then on the other hand, I started thinking-- see, this is how my philosophical brain works when you guys ask questions. 

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[00:06:07] And Jo is really thinking about what's behind this question for the person. And I'm getting all confused thinking to myself, well, wait a minute. We do talk about people buying themselves birthday gifts or someone treating oneself to something special on a special occasion. So now I'm thinking maybe it does make sense to give yourself some things. Anyway, in general, the idea of giving something to yourself is a bit complicated. What about this idea of forgiving? What about giving yourself forgiveness? This is where my mind went first. I think it's at least relevant here that the Bible talks of there being some sort of psychological tension or even duality within us. The Book of James talks about us being double minded, somehow internally in tension with ourselves. In Romans seven, Paul puts it even more strongly. He says, "For in my inner being, I delight in God's law. But I see another law at work in me waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.". 

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[00:07:08] And I think this sort of inner conflict in our inner being, it helps explain why it is possible to have psychological states toward ourselves. We can be mad at ourselves or pleased with ourselves. We can even hate ourselves or we can love ourselves. And biblically, it even seems like we're instructed to love ourselves. The greatest commandment when Jesus was asked was love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. So it seems like three types of love are required in following the greatest commandment. Loving God, loving your neighbor and also loving yourself. And I find an interesting here too, that you often hear the phrase you are your own worst enemy. And yet Jesus tells us to love our enemies, which maybe is even at times a command to love ourselves. And so if we're able to love ourselves and even instructed to, maybe it's also coherent to say there's some sense- and we'll get into the details of this idea of forgiving ourselves-- given that forgiveness is such a critical component of love. 

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[00:08:21] And if it's possible for us to be at war within ourselves, it seems possible for us to go from being at war within ourselves to being at peace within ourselves. And forgiveness is typically essential to any movement from war to peace. Broadening this out a bit from just forgiveness to a more general reflection about how we treat ourselves, God wants us to view and treat all people as He does. I think including ourselves. That maybe another way to put it. So how is your relationship with yourself? Do you want the best for yourself? Do you want to hurt yourself? Do you want to spend time with yourself? How do you treat yourself? I think these are all questions worth reflecting on within our faith. So in sum, it does seem to me that something at least in the vicinity of self-forgiveness is important. But I also think it's important to note here that this is not an explicitly biblical term. So I want to be quite flexible with how we talk about this and not overly prescriptive. I think the bottom line, the fundamental biblical principle is that we need to properly applied Jesus's forgiveness to ourselves. We want to have attitudes toward ourselves that reflect God's attitudes towards us. Maybe that's the best way to put it. 

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Jo Vitale [00:09:39] Yeah, I appreciate that. And by the way, some of you may-- like I'm thinking I need to go back a few minutes and replay that at half the speed just to catch up with what Vince just said. It was very good, but my mind is a little-- because I didn't catch up. But it was very good. 

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Vince Vitale [00:09:56] Most people are listening to us on like a speed and a half, too. It's really going to be a problem. 

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Jo Vitale [00:10:01] Let me try and get through this in the car ride. That is going to be problematic. 

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Vince Vitale [00:10:04] I'm talking to you, Will. I know how fast you listen to this.

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Jo Vitale [00:10:06] Yeah, Will is doing that and maybe some others. The thing I took away from what you just said there Vince, is actually where you landed. That seemed to me also to reflect the heart of Teresa's this question as well. I think the point that Teresa is so clearly emphasizing is that forgiveness starts with God. Sometimes I feel really uncomfortable I think with some of this language I see online or hear people saying about self-forgiveness. Because when I hear that, I sort of instinctively think, well, what gives me the right to forgive myself? Particularly, if I've harmed somebody else, then surely it's not up to me to decide whether or not I'm forgiven. That is on them. And so then maybe take a step back and say, well, what if we're talking about something that's harmful just to myself, well, then perhaps do I have the right to forgive myself as I'm both the perpetrator of the wrong and the victim of the wrong? Yven then that question to me is very complicated by the fact that as a Christian I don't believe I just belong to myself, although I'm some autonomous being who wholly owns myself and my body in some ultimate sense. 

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[00:11:09] Rather, I'm just one tiny part of the universe created by God. This God who not only made it, but continues to sustain it. And not only the totality of the universe, but every piece and part of it, including myself, belongs to him. And so, therefore, to somehow betray myself or wrong myself, harm myself, be self-destructive is not only to wrong myself, but actually it's to wrong the God who made me and purposed me and who has full rights to my life. I think of 1 Corinthians 6:19. "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you've received from God? You're not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body." And so from that perspective, there's a lot of truth in Teresa's question because you might say, well, it doesn't really matter whether I forgive myself. What actually matters is whether or not God forgives me because if he does in my forgiveness towards myself means less than nothing. It has no power. It has no meaning in the ultimate sense. 

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[00:12:04] And so I think maybe the reason I feel discomfort when I sometimes see the language of self-forgiveness in our culture, the way it's used in our culture is because often it's framed in terms of us being the ultimate authorities in our lives or the arbiters of our own fate. As if the only thing that matters is how you feel about yourself or what you think of yourself, and that is sufficient to move forward freely. And I just think that's not true at all. At the end of the day, the only one whose opinion actually counts is God. It's his verdict on our lives that is going to have profound and eternal consequences for us. And I actually think that's why self-forgiveness by itself, without God, feels hollow because it doesn't actually reflect reality. The reality is if we're misaligned with God and with other people and even within ourselves, if all of these relationships are broken, we can tell ourselves it's okay and just let it go until we're blue in the face, but it doesn't actually free us. 

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[00:12:58] All we wind up doing is we just went up squashing it down or suppressing those feelings of guilt or shame about what we've done and either it just explodes later or in order to deal with it we just have to kind of numb ourselves to the feelings. We just have to harden ourselves and then we just grow callous. And the result of that is that we just start to care less and less about our behavior and the way we treat ourselves and others. And then we become more harmful because we love less and less. And I think it's because we're wired to need forgiveness from beyond ourselves. It's the most amazing experience in the world when you've rung somebody and you go to them and you genuinely ask for forgiveness and they actually offer it freely, it is the most unbelievable feeling in the whole world. If you haven't done that, go and do it. I promise you nothing else feels like that moment when you really repent and someone really forgives you. It is so incredible. But even better than that is the feeling of being forgiven by God. It is so transformational to experience that freedom. 

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[00:13:53] And so I just think we have to go to God for forgiveness first. We don't get to wave that magic wand and decide we're forgiven without consulting him. But, of course, the beautiful news of the gospel is that with him there is forgiveness. Psalms 130:4, with you, there is forgiveness. Therefore, you are feared. You're not feared as in terrified, but feared as in wonder or reverence because with God there is forgiveness. We can't forgive ourselves outside of him. Teresa said it. It's not a work we can do outside of the cross by bypassing God somehow, nor can we add to the work of the cross as if God somehow needed us to forgive ourselves in order to be forgiven by him for our forgiveness to be complete. It's complete because of what Jesus did. Everything is done in Christ that needed to be done for us to be forgiven. Psalm 103, "As far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us." From God's perspective, they're totally gone. But I think the point Vince was getting at there is that nevertheless, once we have forgiveness from God, then we are in that position where we still may need to apply it to ourselves or surrender in such a way as to allow him to apply it to us. 

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[00:15:02] All the forgiveness we need is found in him, but we still have that choice as to whether we're going to believe it and accept it and receive that forgiveness that is entirely won for us and given to us by Christ and to live our lives in the light of what Christ has done for us and what He's already declared to be true of us, or whether we're going to continue to kind of refuse to love ourselves in the way that Christ has loved us. I think that there's something to that. Are we surrendered to the grace of God or are we putting up this wall against it and continuing to live in self-hatred? Because then we're actually living in denial or defiance of the true gospel, which says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Not even condemnation from ourselves. So that's just a little bit more in that. But what does those walls look like? If we're putting up walls against God's forgiveness, if we're trying to not really receive it or be surrendered to it, then what are the obstacles that get in the way of us accepting the forgiveness of God? Vince, what comes to mind for you when you think about. What is it getting in the way? 

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Vince Vitale [00:16:05] Yeah, I think there are a few primary ones. We often treat forgiveness as if it is just a feeling. Our post-truth culture tends to prioritize feelings and emotions over objective facts and truth. And so if I don't feel forgiven, then I must not be. And if I don't feel that I can forgive myself, then I guess I can't. But I want to challenge that and say that forgiveness is not just a feeling and it's not just sort of an involuntary experience that you either happen to have or don't have. It's much more active and hands on than that. Forgiveness is something that you do. It's a choice that you make and then that you proactively live out. I remember I had a friend a couple of years ago struggling with this idea of applying God's forgiveness to himself and experiencing it. And we discussed how between two people forgiveness often comes, as Joe has said, when one person takes that concrete step of saying, "Will you forgive me?" And the other person responds, "Yes, I will." And now that doesn't mean that there will be no emotions of frustration to continue to work through after that. Often there can be. But there's still a really significant sense in which the forgiveness has taken place, or at least it's on the path to taking place. The door to it has been swung open. And oftentimes the feelings follow the forgiveness, not vice versa. 

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[00:17:33] And my friend and I then reflected on kind of a simplistic example, but just the idea of working out in the morning. How do you work out in the morning? Maybe you don't, but if you do like you just do it. You commit to it. You set your alarm, you know it's good for you and then you get up and you do it. If you wait until you feel like working out first thing in the morning before you do, then you're probably not going to get many workouts in over the course of the year. So I would encourage us let's not be bossed around by our feelings. Don't assume that just because you're not feeling forgiveness toward yourself, that you can't take concrete steps towards forgiving yourself. That might actually be like a deception, like a lie from the enemy telling you that you just don't have the power, that it's not possible for you to have a forgiving attitude towards yourself. Our feelings can be very deceptive. And we need to care more about doing what God does than about following our feelings. Follow God, not your feelings. He didn't just wait until he felt forgiveness towards us. He came actively and took concrete steps toward forgiveness. 

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[00:18:36] And no matter how we feel towards ourselves, we can begin to take steps in prayer. We can tell God in prayer that we accept his forgiveness of us. And therefore, we want to apply that forgiveness to ourselves even if that's not how we feel in the moment. We can ask him by his spirit, and his power, to make that real to us. So I think sometimes we get confused, this idea that forgiveness is just a feeling. I think a second reason we sometimes struggle with forgiveness towards ourselves is because forgiving ourselves or applying Jesus's forgiving to ourselves really does require, in a very significant sense, forgiving others. The Bible makes such a strong connection between us receiving forgiveness and us forgiving others. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. If you forgive those who sinned against you, your Heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your father will not forgive your sins. Or when Jesus is teaching us how to pray, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." In the same way that we forgive others. This is one reason it can be very hard to forgive oneself. 

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[00:19:47] If we want to forgive ourselves or experience the Lord's forgiveness of ourselves, we need to foster the habit of forgiving others. Because forgiving yourself when you don't forgive others creates a lot of inner turmoil. It sort of sets up this double standard. Jo has already glanced in this direction, where you are forgiving your own sin but not the sin of others. And then you have this internal wrestle because you have this internal experience of hypocrisy. And when we develop habits of treating people in an unforgiving way, it's no surprise if those habits then carry over and double back into the way that we treat ourselves. So once again, how can we practically respond to this? I recommend taking time every day to pray for someone you find it difficult to love. One of the most radical things Jesus ever said, "Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you." Radical. Praying for your enemies or for those you find it difficult to love is a powerful way to develop a disposition of charity and forgiveness toward others, which in turn can help you to develop that same attitude toward yourself. Remembering that we're all sinners. We all fall short of the glory of God. We are all in the same boat. And if God can give us the grace to forgive even our enemies, then surely He can give us the grace to forgive ourselves, too. 

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Jo Vitale [00:21:06] Yeah, I think that is such a big deal. It's around the passage that Vince already quoted, but Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant. He owes this huge financial debt to the king that in monetary terms it's an amount that would be impossible for anyone in any lifetime to ever earn. And yet when he goes to the king and he's about to be thrown in prison for he's about to be sold actually as a slave, when he gravels and says let me pay it back to you, the king actually forgives him. He doesn't even say you need to pay it back. He couldn't pay it back. But the king forgives him, symbolizing God. But then this person goes on to come across somebody else who owes him such a minuscule amount of money compared to the debt that he owed. It's like nothing. Just not a big deal. And yet he refuses to forgive that person and threatens them. And when the king hears about it, his response was then to say, well, okay, if you're not going to forgive this person after everything I've done for you, then you know it no longer counts, right? The debt is no longer forgiven. I'm going to throw you in prison until you can pay it back. 

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[00:22:07] Sometimes I think we hear that story and we think the issue is that somehow the forgiving of somebody else is what ends the king's forgiveness. But it doesn't happen that way. The king has already forgiven him before he goes on to do anything else. He doesn't say go around and forgive everyone else their debts and then I'll forgive. He's already forgiven him, but the issue is a heart issue. It is about what's going on in that person's heart. That by not forgiving somebody else's debts, what he has shown is that he hasn't really understood or accepted or been changed by what it meant for him to be forgiven of the unrepayable debt. It shows it wasn't actually true repentance that he was displaying to the king, it was self-pity. And that actually he hasn't been transformed. He hasn't been changed. He hasn't grasped the grace that he's been given. And I think it's the same with us. That it's not that that forgiveness of ourselves can add anything to the totality of God's forgiveness of us. He has done everything like he has done so far beyond anything that we could possibly do. 

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[00:23:05] We're forgiven whether we feel it or live in light of it or not. But the issue is that if we don't forgive other people, then it shows that we don't really grasp what we first owed to God and just how much grace we have received and how extraordinary it is. But I think it's the same with ourselves as well, that when we don't forgive ourselves it's also revealing something about our hearts and what we haven't understood about grace and just how extravagant God's gift of grace towards us is and the beauty of that gift. It was kind of like we've thrown ourselves in jail. It's really interesting to me that Paul in Romans used that language of being like a prisoner, being a prisoner with his own flesh. I think when we're not willing to accept God's forgiveness and admit that we are forgiven, that our status is people who are free, we basically then go ahead and we lock ourselves in jail. And it's a sign that we haven't really grasped it. We haven't understood that we actually are forgiven. However we feel doesn't matter. The reality is we're forgiven and therefore we're free, but we don't believe we're forgiven and so we lock ourselves in jail instead. I think that in turn because we're locking ourselves up in prison for our own debts, we also go around looking other people up as well rather than setting them free in turn. 

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[00:24:19] And that's also interesting to me because I think if that's what we're doing when we're not forgiving ourselves, if we're essentially locking ourselves in jail and holding the key, then what we're really doing is we're setting ourselves up as judge over God. We're actually saying, regardless of your judgment and your verdict, God, actually, I see the situation more clearly than you do, and I know what I deserve. You may say I get to go free, but I'm the judge not you. And I get to give the verdict, not you. And it's up to me to forgive, not you. And in a way, what we're kind of doing is we're taking back ourselves and saying, I don't really belong to you. You don't get to forgive me. Only I get to forgive myself because I, in a sense, I own myself. So in a way, we're speaking a lie about who we belong to and who's in charge and who is the judge and who isn't. So, yeah, I find it really interesting just thinking through that parable and what are some of the implications. Because when Jesus stood up at the beginning of his ministry and he referenced all of Isaiah, he begins with that passage, doesn't he? "Today this is fulfilled in your hearing." And what does the passage say? It says "I'm here to proclaim the recovery of sight for the blind and freedom for the prisoners." And Jesus came to set us free, but when we don't forgive ourselves we're actually locking ourselves in chains. 

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Vince Vitale [00:25:36] Yeah, that's really well said Joe. I was just thinking about our kids and how sometimes if they get really angry or bitter or resentful, they'll try to take it out on us by not allowing us to do something kind for them. You know that experience? And I never really thought it through, but it's like this way of saying I'm in charge, not you. I'm not going to receive that from you. I'm going to set myself up over you, so I'm the parental figure over myself. I never thought of that connection, but that's insightful Jo. I think one other reason we really struggle with this idea of forgiveness, whether others or ourselves, is because we think forgiveness means minimizing the severity of the sin. And if that's the case, then forgiveness can even be experienced as irresponsible or harmful. I came across this adage that's often attributed to rabbinical writings, and it says he that is merciful to the cruel will eventually be cruel to the innocent. 

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Jo Vitale [00:26:45] I feel like you could read that in an article today. I feel like that's exactly the [inaudible] culture today.

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Vince Vitale [00:26:49] Absolutely. As far as I'm aware, that is hundreds of years old and it is it's so timely. It aligns with this cultural mindset that forgiveness is the opposite of justice. And so when it comes to any notion of self-forgiveness, especially if we have done something we really regret or maybe it has hurt someone we really love, our reaction can be to run from forgiveness, to instead beat ourselves up and play out our grievance narratives against ourselves over and over in our heads, which is actually a form of self-atonement. That's what's actually going on. What we are fundamentally doing when we slander ourselves in our heads over and over or to others, we are saying, I am going to punish myself until I have sufficiently atoned for my sins, until I have worked my way back into right standing with God and with others. But the truth is that forgiveness, properly understood, does not minimize sin. It's actually a statement of how serious sin is. If sin wasn't serious, then it could just be overlooked. Or we could just lean on the world's wisdom that time heals all wounds. No need for repentance and forgiveness. That's overly dramatic. No, we can just wait it out and the hurt will just go away all by itself. But we all know that doesn't work. We've all tried it and it doesn't work. It never works. 

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[00:28:12] What Christianity endorses is not just a superficial forgiveness. It's not just, yeah, no problem, don't mention it. That's not Christian forgiveness. Christian forgiveness is not merely words. No. In Christianity, forgiveness is embedded within a process of reconciliation, where there is both repentance and forgiveness, where the gospel is symbolically reenacted because in repentance we die and in forgiveness we are raised to life. In repentance we have to lower ourselves and humble ourselves, and in forgiveness we receive back hope and peace. And if we have any doubt about how serious sin is and how costly forgiveness is, ultimately we look to the cross of Christ. Forgiveness does not mean saying it's no big deal. Jesus's death starkly refutes that narrative. Sin is so serious and forgiveness is so costly that it required death and the death of Jesus himself. So I think it's actually a particular gift and freedom of the Christian life to be able to forgive without saying sin is all right or no big deal. It is only because Jesus has already taken care of justice that we are free to forgive without disregarding, overlooking, in any way undermining justice. And Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov says it so well, saying, "Brother, you asked just now if there is in the whole world a being who could and would have the right to forgive. But there is such a being and he can forgive everything, forgive all and for all because he himself gave his innocent blood for all and for everything." 

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Jo Vitale [00:29:51] That was an amazing quote, isn't it? Jesus's death really is the only thing that gets us out of the conundrum. Otherwise we are just stuck in that cycle of leaning towards forgiving ourselves, but never be able to forgive anybody else. I'm just thinking of Archbishop Desmond Tutu's words when he was leading the response to apartheid in South Africa and the kind of truth and reconciliation trials that he did, where it wasn't about saying, hey, no big deal what happened, but he was saying that if people come forward and truly confessed and tell the absolute truth about everything that they've done to others and step into the light rather than trying to minimize or diminish them, then there will be forgiveness offered to people who really come and tell the truth. And you have that phrase that says no future without forgiveness. I think that's such a true statement. There's just no future without forgiveness. There's no future without forgiving others. There's no future most of all if God doesn't forgive us. But also we can't live if we're not forgiving ourselves. There's no way forward. We're just forever stuck in the past. 

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[00:31:00] But it's so good what you said, Vince. Just highlighting that it doesn't mean it's okay what happened because you're forgiven. I think sometimes as Christians we get that wrong. Sometimes you hear testimonies and people talk about their stories where they'll say I did this terrible thing but actually, in the end, I'm so glad it happened because then I found Jesus or then I was forgiven. And that's when Jesus comes into someone's life and the gospel comes in and they experience forgiveness. And you're like, yes, we should celebrate being forgiven. Yes, we should celebrate how amazing the grace of God is, but we've got to find a way in our language to not diminish what came before. Because it's actually only because of how serious it was, what came before, that what happened afterwards was so significant because it was so undeserved. And I think sometimes there's an appropriateness. You can you can accept the forgiveness of God and move into the freedom of being forgiven and not hating yourself anymore while still regretting what you did. I think sometimes it's appropriate to carry those things forward. You're not shamed by it. You're not stained by it anymore because Jesus Christ has freed us and he's washed us clean from our sin. 

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[00:32:03] But part of living as a forgiven person can be through the process of allowing those regrets to inform, teach, and inspire us to live differently. Not because you're doing things now to atone or to make amends in a sense where you're earning your forgiveness, but by saying, hey, as a forgiving person, who's walking in the freedom of forgiveness, I want to show the transformation that's happened by actually doing the work of being concerned for justice in the very areas where I know I acted unjustly. That's not about earning something, but it is about living as a free person in light of it. And I think that's a way of walking forward in forgiveness while not minimizing or diminishing. You can have regrets but still be free. And I think that's the beauty of the gospel, is those things don't define you anymore, they don't change you, they don't imprison you anymore. And yet you can move forward in a way that is ultimately redemptive in the world and be part of God's work of making all things new. 

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[00:32:57] But I guess some pushback in general around this conversation, just a long conversation about forgiving ourselves, some people might just kind of flinch at it and say, well, isn't this all just too introspective? Isn't this just a little bit self-absorbed, just going on about why can't we just get over ourselves? It's still focus on the self. Is there something just selfish about this notion of forgiving oneself, of just getting a bit obsessive about needing to talk about forgiving ourselves? Shouldn't we just move on and get on with things. Vince, what would you say to someone who has that concern around this whole topic and conversation, and where our culture kind of focuses here sometimes? 

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Vince Vitale [00:33:32] Yeah, it could be. I resonate with that. If you're having this conversation day after day for years, yes, it can feel that way. It can just seem so focused on me and I think it's right for us to do everything we can in our current culture that just asks us in so many ways to focus on ourselves, to put our focus on others. But if our heart is in the right place, it's not necessarily selfish to have a love for oneself and there's some component of forgiveness which is essential. I think the reason is because loving ourselves is actually a way of loving God. If we love God, we should not treat anything that he loves with disdain. Loving someone means working to love what they love. Sometimes that is hard. Sometimes that takes work. And I see Jo nodding enthusiastically, a little bit too enthusiastically right now. 

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Jo Vitale [00:34:34] I wasn't thinking about you. 

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Vince Vitale [00:34:34] Yeah, sure. But it's true, if you are constantly trashing what someone loves, that's really going to hurt your relationship with them. If Joe was an artist and she put her whole self into making her most beloved piece of artwork, and then every day when I walked into the room I spoke badly about it, that would have a disastrously negative impact on our relationship. Well, the scriptures say that you 're God's poem, his workmanship, his masterpiece, and that he takes great delight in you. So we need to be very careful about not speaking badly about ourselves or having an unforgiving and condemning attitude towards ourselves. Because when we do, we not only hurt ourselves, but we hurt the God who made us and who loves us. Perhaps another way to get our hearts around this same point, if one of my sons was hating himself and harming himself and speaking disparagingly about himself, how would that make me feel as his father? That would pain me so much. And so as part of our care for God, we need to care for ourselves as well. 

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[00:35:38] And one way to understand the process of discipleship in general or just following Jesus, I think is as a process of increasingly ordering and aligning our lives with God's loves. And that even includes aligning ourselves with His love for us. So loving ourselves is a way of loving God, and loving ourselves is also a way of loving others in our lives. If we withhold forgiveness from ourselves and are still personally trying to earn God's forgiveness, then we will have a tendency to make others try to earn ours. I said earlier that when we treat others with unforgiveness, that can cause us to treat ourselves with unforgiveness. Well, that cuts the other way too. How we treat ourselves is training us for how to treat others. And it's very hard to have one attitude toward yourself and then just flip a switch and have a completely different attitude towards others. If we want to love the people in our lives well, our friends, family, spouses, kids, then we need to love ourselves well too. So self-forgiveness rightly motivated and biblically understood, not merely a selfish endeavor, can be a way of putting ourselves in the best position to love others and even God himself. 

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Jo Vitale [00:36:53] That's such a helpful way to frame it. And if this is something that you've been struggling with, if you've been struggling to forgive yourself, just maybe a way to help you get around it is to focus that to say, well, rather than worrying about how I feel towards myself, how am I going to love God and how am I going to love other people? And in turn, you may find that this gets aligned in the process of focusing in those areas and being able to accept that actually ultimately you are so loved, that you are so forgiven that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And if you want that to be you, that includes you, that offer is for you. And so that's unfortunately all the time we have now. I know it's a massive topic. It could go in so many other directions. I'm sure, in future episodes of Ask Away we'll wind up touching on themes of forgiveness and judgment again. But thank you Teresa for asking such a helpful question and for the concern that you expressed behind it. I hope this has been an encouragement to those who are struggling. Vince, do you want to just sum it up for us as we finish? 

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Vince Vitale [00:38:09] Yeah. Thank you. We have really been blessed to spend time thinking and praying about this question. So really appreciate all of your listening and the questions you send in. And I just think this topic it's such an important question because it strikes at the very heart of our understanding of the gospel. At first glance it can sometimes seem-- and Teresa you picked up on this. It can sometimes seem like quite a humble position to see your sin as so bad that you can't forgive yourself. And it's important for us to recognize that there's some deception in that and actually it's quite an arrogant position. It's saying that your standard is higher than God's, that God has forgiven you but you require more than God in order to forgive yourself. You have a higher standard than he does. And likewise, withholding forgiveness can belittle and even take a prideful stance toward Jesus's sacrifice. We've circled around this notion, but his death was good enough for God to forgive you. Jesus's death was good enough for God to forgive you, so it has to be good enough for you to have a forgiving attitude toward yourself. We cannot imply that there's something lacking in Jesus's sacrifice or that it was not actually sufficient. 

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[00:39:30] So the hard question that we all need to answer is who do we trust more, God or ourselves? What God says about us or what we say about us? I trust what Einstein says about math a lot more than what I'd say about it. Much more. And if my instinct on something mathematical was different from his, I would quickly and confidently defer. I mean, how much more so with God. We need to deepen our relationship with God and our trust in him to the point where we trust what he says about us even more, in fact, way more, infinitely more than we trust what we say or feel about ourselves. And what he says unconditionally is that if we put our trust in him, then we are forgiven. 

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[00:40:15] So I hope that's encouragement. To all of you listening. I hope that brings comfort and freedom and also spurs you in your prayers. I hope this week in your prayers with God you would say, regardless of how I feel, thank you, Lord, for your forgiveness of me. And even if I'm struggling to experience that or to understand that, would you, by your spirit, make that real to me? Pray that every day this week, and then take time this week every day to pray for someone you find it difficult to love, someone who you find it difficult to forgive, so that your heart disposition toward others aligns with God's. And you may just find over time that your heart towards yourself is also aligning with God's wonderful heart for you. 

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