If God can forgive our sin, why cant we and how can we forgive ourselves. this is a genuine question aimed at?

Question

this is a genuine question aimed at mature and honest people i need helpful answers not clever or abusive ones
thankyou in advance

Answer 1

God is unconditionally Loving so it is not likely that He will be judging you either.

unconditional means no conditions.

No conditions mean that there is nothing to Judge. No conditions no sins.

Love and blessings Don

Answer 2

There is no limit to the mercy of God. The parable of the prodigal son is amazing.Once we are sorry for what we might have done, we are forgiven. It needs a relationship- God and the person. There is an old saying- With us God will. Without us God will not. Only God can forgive sins.Jesus also instructed the Apostles to forgive sins in his name as he had the divine authority to do so. Therefore only the anointed minister can do that. We can also do if possible reparation for our sins, depending on what they are. No sin is unforgivable.

Answer 3

Oh honey, isn't that just the question? Funny, then I feel evil because we are taught we must accept forgiveness and thereby forgive ourselves. I think it is the sad regret of not having "do-overs", even if we can accept forgiveness, we so would like to make it so it never happened.

You're not alone, I'm sure there is not a soul alive who doesn't carry a burden like that. But I do know we are forgiven and will go to heaven. Till that time is, try not to earn any more burdens!

Answer 4

ok lets take an extreme example.
child murderers.
only God can forgive sin.
only when u truly repent of a sin
can u be forgiven.
if u have repented and u are forgiven by God
nothing else matters, even if u r reminded of what u have done and made to feel like sh*t by the one who more often than not leads u into it in the first place. sound complicated? it isn't. one of the greatest deceits of all is to make someone believe that they have done something of their own free will when they may well not have done. however, as in all things, u have a choice about
what u do or don't do.
even child murderers can be forgiven.
anything less can certainly be forgiven.
if u r truly sorry.

Answer 5

An interesting question, one I've pondered myself. I find that it is a question that will necessarily come around again and again demanding to be answered and being only partially satisfied, partly because we will sin from time to time because that is our nature and partly because we often can not avoid allowing self condemnation to temporarily get the better of us.

If you are a born again believer then I would hope that you will know what I mean when I say that the secret is to cooperate with God's Holy Spirit. There is a purpose in every correction, every conviction and it is not to achieve self destruction through condemnation. We are called to lead holy lives and so conviction should accompany every wrong doing and every unkind word but I do not believe that it should lead to us being unforgiving toward ourselves.

This does not necessarily mean that there's no place for self condemnation but only as an instrument in the hands of a loving God. Self condemnation is one of the enemies most powerful weapons, he (Satan) is not called the accuser for nothing, he seeks to steal, kill and destroy and he will use our own guilt against us, binding us to our sin rather than allow us the freedom that comes from it's release through God's forgiveness.

Our aim I believe should be to always seek to confront our sin and with God's help, to purge it from our lives and once dealt with, to turn our backs on it.

Answer 6

I think pride has a lot to do with that. I try to be a good person and take pride in that. When I make mistakes or do something when I knew better, I always feel I let myself down more than anyone else. And I continue to feel bad after asking God for forgiveness. What we need to do is shed that pride and remember we are still human, and don't have any business thinking we are somehow better than anyone else. And always remember this: A mistake is only a mistake,if you fail to learn from it.

Answer 7

God forgive sins because he is the one who created us, and he knows that when he created us we will sin, the important part is we realise that we have sinned and we ask him to forgive us. this will keep the relationship between god and us going as we always ask him for forgiveness. Allah says, (if you ask about me, i am nearby you, i answer your prayer if you ask me, so ask and believe in me),
for us its difficult to get over something bad we have done. but we need to remember if this thing has been forgiven then we can also forgive ourselves, but remember it doesn't mean we can go and do it again just because we have been forgiven.
for the person who asked about why does god punish people who don't believe if he is full of forgiveness?
God forgive all sins except if you worship something else rather than him, or deny his existence. think about it logically how would you ask for forgiveness if you don't believe in him at all and why?! how can u ask forgiveness from someone you don't believe in or you spend all of your life worshipping something else! example, i give you money, health, house, wealth, and you spend all of your life thanking your luck and denying all what i have given you! how can that be right?

Answer 8

We should forgive ourselves if God has forgiven us. The one, true, holy God says He loves us and forgives our sins so who are we to not to forgive ourselves. It's a matter of choice, we must decide to forgive ourselves. Pretty tough thing sometimes though...

However, understand this forgiveness is only available through God's Son, Jesus Christ. He is the one who takes away the sins of the world and through Him alone is there forgiveness.

Answer 9

We can trust God that he is right and reject our own sense of righteousness. Depend on the Bible to show us what is right and wrong. I think you question arises with a lot of people who genuinely have been forgiven by God. We have to trust him and know that Christ has payed our debt with his shed blood on the cross. Paul said, "I do not frustrate the grace of Christ." This is in Galatians. This happens when our sense of what is right conflicts with what has happened which is the righteousness of God. We really need to depend on God's righteousness - not our own which is self-righteousness. We do this initially when we come to Christ for forgiveness and admit we are sinners unable to help ourselves. We recognize God's righteousness and our sinfulness. But we also must deal with the issues in our mind afterwards of how we have been taught in this world. Satan the accuser of the brethren is always there to remind us of the wrong we have done. We need to resist him. And We need to renew our mind. An interesting and powerful verse comes to mind, John 1:9. It says that when we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive ours sins. Faithful means God will do it every time. Just means that it is the right thing for God to do to forgive. When we do not forgive ourselves, we are saying really that we know better than God. This is actually sin and prevents God from doing more in our lives. It is right for God to forgive because Jesus payed it all.

Answer 10

Forgiving yourself is harder to do than accepting forgiveness. I think most people do not expect you to be able to forgive yourself. God is almighty and thus has the power to forgive you. But we, being humans, find it harder to forgive ourselves. It's just a limitation of our emotional capacity.

I think this is because we cannot see the effects our actions have on the whole scheme of things, and God's plan. We can only see the bad effect our action had directly on us and those close to us. But I believe that everything happens for a reason. Once you beleive this, it is easier to learn to forgive yourself.

Answer 11

When we truly repent, God forgives our sins, but for us it is good to still look at ourselves as sinners. Otherwise, there is quite a probability that we will get a high opinion of ourselves (which is pride without a good reason to be proud), and can get back into something worse. And anyway, pride is enough to separate us from God.

The other extreme that we should also avoid is losing hope in Lord's mercy. Whatever we do, sincere and intense repentance will grant us God's forgiveness, because God does not want the death of the sinner, but for him to repent and be alive (=alive in spirit, instead of dead in spirit; destined to heaven, instead of destined to hell). Repentance means our change of mind and heart, from indulging in a sin to repulsion for it and an honest desire to have nothing to do with it. Repentance gives us both determination and the desire to pray to God to save us from our sins, as from a disease of the soul. Or, rather, the other way around, we start by praying and the determination comes after. Even if we don't get it right at first, whenever we fail, true repentance will give us the determination to stand up again and "start with a good start" all over again.

For me, as an Orthodox Christian, repentance is tightly bound with confession. Whenever I did not confess my sins to a priest (and not any priest, but the one who knows me, my spiritual fatehr in other words), I felt indeed as you say. The remorse coming with repentance tended to overwhelm me. But the forgiveness of sins granted by a priest (there are even scriptural references to apostles forgiving sins, if you wonder) and the advice he gives tilt the balance the other way, toward hope and determination for a new beginning.