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Photo: Anissa Thompson

Let me begin by asking a question and I’m serious. “If God has forgiven a person for what they have done, who else really needs to?” You will understand where I am coming from when you see who we sin against in the first place.

Although the consequences of sin affect everyone’s life, strictly speaking sin is something that we do in God's face. In the Old Testament, Joseph had it figured out; because when the boss' wife suggested a little hanky panky, Joseph didn't say, “How could I do this against you?” or “How could I do this against my boss?” Rather he said, “How could I do this great sin against God?”

If the sin we committed was primarily against God and He has forgiven us then what do we mean when we say that we can’t forgive ourselves? There is a text that may help us to understand what we are saying. It is found in Genesis 4:13, “And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear.”

Could it be that what we are really saying is that we don't think that we can accept the consequences for what we’ve have done?  Like Cain, could we feel that the consequences are more than we can bear?

Human nature being what it is, perhaps we think that when we are forgiven that ought to be the end of it. But that is just not the way the cookie crumbles. One of the great laws of life is the law of cause and effect. Galatians 6:7 says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

All of us have made some pretty big mistakes. These mistakes are not only part of our past, but their results often impact our present and even can impact our future. The point is what we did we did. It’s history. I heard of a teen-ager who had an automobile accident. That night he prayed. “Lord, help that wreck not to have happened.”

Although we must necessarily live with the effects of what we have done, we don’t need to get discouraged and give up. A hard lesson can actually serve a purpose even though we regret having done it in the first place and would in no way do it again.

I worked my way through college on a plastering crew. One day as we were stuccoing a house, I caught my right arm in a cement mixer. Thank God, my work buddy pulled the plug immediately and the paddles didn’t pull my arm off at the shoulder, but it did break the bones. Today my arm works just fine. But it’s scarred and no amount of prayer will make the scars go away. (Interestingly, the doctor told me that at the point of the break my bones would be even stronger than before the accident.).

 A man who commits his life to Jesus can actually become stronger at the points that were once his weakness. One of my favorite texts is Romans 8:28, which says, “All things work together for good to them that love God.” If you’re like me, you recognize that you may have even done a lot of crazy things before you began to love God. These things were definitely not good and you are terribly sorry for them. But now that you do love God, the lessons you learned from those things you did, rather than being something that drag you down, can actually help to make you stronger.