I hate the devil, but I know he hates me worse. How do I know this? Because he tries harder to stop me on a daily basis than I ever try to stop him. He is relentless. Sometimes I am not. Often what I am is defeated.

Satan has many weapons in his arsenal, and he wastes no time picking out the most effective ones to use against us. He does not just want to slow us down or discourage us, although that would be powerful. He wants to cripple us, to shut us down completely from serving God and from becoming the person that God wants us to be. If he can do this, he believes he has achieved his ultimate goal—to defeat God by defeating His children. Now we know how this story ends, and it is not God who gets defeated. The devil knows this too, but it does not stop him from trying.

In my opinion, there is one weapon that the devil finds most effective—one he has used against me many times. I am talking about guilt. We have guilt for things we should have done. Guilt for things we did not do. Guilt for things we cannot change. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.

Satan has had thousands of years to study us. Although times have changed, our areas of vulnerability have not. They are still those closest to our hearts—our spouses, our children, our parents, our friends, and others in our sphere of influence. It is where he likes to hit us the hardest, where he can hurt us the most. We try to fix things on our own. But saying sorry does not mean there is no guilt and forgiving does not mean the pain is gone. It is not always that easy, no matter how hard we try.

Satan defeats us, not by using guilt over the sins that we think are trivial, like wasting time or overeating. He gets us with those sins in our lives too painful to speak about, the ones we cannot forgive ourselves for, the ones that deep down we don’t believe God can really forgive us for. They are the ones that we cannot believe we deserve His mercy for. Here is where I stop and say “This is a big, fat lie. The devil is a big, fat liar!”

The whole point is we can never deserve God’s mercy—no matter what we do. Oh, we have to do what is right—to ask people to forgive us. We have to take responsibility for the pain we cause other people and the damage that we do. I am not discounting any of that. But do we have to pay a life-long penance? There is a price to be paid for our guilt and our sin. But Jesus’ blood covered it all when He died for our sins. All we have to do is accept His precious gift. Here is the kicker: Nothing we could ever do could make God love us more, and nothing we could ever do could make God love us less. It is not about who we are. It is about who He is.

Forgiving ourselves means letting go of the things that we hold against ourselves and that hold us back from moving forward with God. Forgiveness takes strength and courage and allows us to overcome being a victim. Sometimes the best reason to let something go is because it is heavy. We can choose to move in a life-giving direction or be robbed of becoming a life-giving servant of God. If we don’t forgive ourselves, the life can be snuffed out of us.

Jesus became the perfect sacrifice. All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. Isaiah 64:6

We have all sinned and deserve God’s judgment. God, the Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him.  Jesus, the Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He  died for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was buried, and rose from the dead. If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your Savior, you will be saved from judgment and spend eternity with God in heaven.

It all comes down to one thing, either we believe this or we don’t. If God has forgiven us, shouldn’t we forgive ourselves?

Dear Lord: Thank You for loving us. Help us to forgive ourselves and others, as you forgive us. We cannot change the past, but we can change the future with your help. Thank You for Your grace and mercy to move forward. Amen

As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one.”  Romans 3:10

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12

Has there been something in your life that is just too terrible to be forgiven of? Make today that day that you let go and let God.

Please feel free to share your thoughts, comments and experiences by replying below. Or private message me. I would love to pray with you and for you.

Thank you for reading and sharing my blogpost today. May you feel the comfort and peace of God’s love and forgiveness in your life today and always.