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Move Forward with God’s Forgiveness

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by Rick Warren

“Look straight ahead with honest confidence; don’t hang your head in shame.” (Proverbs 4:25 TEV)

You don’t need to walk around carrying a load of guilt. The Apostle Paul says, “Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious ideal; yet now God declares us ‘not guilty’ of offending him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in his kindness freely takes away our sins” (Romans 3:23-24 TLB).

God wants to forgive you. Imagine a giant blackboard with all of your sins written across it and God comes along with a giant eraser and erases it all. It’s like an Etch A Sketch: You turn it upside down and shake it, then turn it back up, and the slate is clean. That’s good news, isn’t it?

But we need to accept God’s forgiveness. We may know about God’s forgiveness intellectually, but we need to believe it, deep down inside, accepting in faith that it is true — because it is!

One thing that often blocks us from accepting forgiveness from God is that we are unable to forgive ourselves. You need to forgive yourself for your past failures and sins, for the habits and hang-ups that led you to sin. Forgive yourself!

God wants you to forgive yourself. He teaches us to “look straight ahead with honest confidence; don’t hang your head in shame” (Proverbs 4:25 TEV).

Have you ever committed a sin and asked God to forgive you, and, even though you know he’s forgiven you, you still feel lousy? What do you do in that situation? Do you go back and ask him to forgive you again? Confess it again, over and over?

No. You only have to confess a sin one time, and it’s forgiven. But you may have to forgive yourself a hundred times and say it over and over until it sinks in: “God’s forgiven me. It’s over.”

Our problem is that we want to keep reminding God of things he’s already forgotten. It’s forgiven and forgotten. You’ve already dealt with it. Someone once asked Eleanor Roosevelt, “How did you accomplish so much with your life?” She replied, “I never waste time with regrets.”

Don’t waste time with your regrets. Accept God’s forgiveness, and forgive yourself.

Move Forward with Confidence

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by Rick Warren

“Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God.” (1 John 3:21 NIV)

You’ve probably noticed that your confidence ebbs and flows. It varies greatly from day to day: One day you’re up, and one day you’re down. What causes that?

In part, it’s about what is going on inside of you. The Bible teaches, “If our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God” (1 John 3:21 NIV). When we face life’s hurts, habits, and hang-ups, it’s important that we walk out of self-condemnation and into the faithful confidence that God forgives us.

What causes self-condemnation?

Unresolved guilt: King David wrote, “There was a time when I wouldn’t admit what a sinner I was. But my dishonesty made me miserable and filled my days with frustration” (Psalm 32:3 LB).

This reminds me of a sign I saw the other day: “A clean engine produces more power.” That’s true in humans, too. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who wrote “Sherlock Holmes,” once pulled a prank on 12 prominent Englishmen. He sent them an anonymous note that said, “All is found out. Flee at once.” Within 24 hours, eight of those men had left the country! Guilt destroys your confidence.

Unrealistic expectations: This is also known as perfectionism — the feeling that I must be flawless, that I must please everybody, that I always have to do more, that I’m not allowed to relax.

If you’re a perfectionist, your favorite phrase is, “I should … I must … I ought … I have to …” You’re always doing more.

If you’re an average person, you have three things on your daily “to do” list. You get one of them done, you leave one of them unfinished, and the third one you just forget about. You go home and put your feet up at night and feel good about yourself.

If you’re a perfectionist, you have 29 things on your daily “to do” list. You finish 28 of them, then you go home and feel like a failure! The Bible says, “Even perfection has its limits, but [God’s] commands have no limit” (Psalm 119:96 NLT).

Both guilt and perfectionism cause a lack of confidence in our lives.