Self-Forgiveness

They’ve forgiven you.  Now you can move on.  Or can you?  Have you forgiven yourself?
No!  You can’t forgive yourself yet!  You haven’t suffered enough.  You haven’t wallowed in self-misery long enough.  You need to keep feeling guilty about what you did.  You can’t forgive yourself until you’ve fully punished yourself…
Why?
Too many times we hold on to the sins of the past.  We continue to feel guilty about what we’ve done.  Regardless of the fact that the person we wronged has forgiven us, we can’t let go.  Regardless of the fact that this particular sin was a minuscule part of the sins of Humanity that Christ upon himself when he died on the Cross
By not forgiving yourself you are rejecting God’s forgiveness. Can you claim that your opinion of sin is of more value that God’s?  If God forgives you, why can’t you forgive yourself?  If he deems that you are worthy of forgiveness then you are worthy of forgiveness.
You must ask forgiveness of God as soon as you repent of your sin.  If you ask for forgiveness you will be forgiven.  1 John 1:9 says “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins…”  There is no sin that will not be forgiven if you ask for forgiveness.  
Maybe you are too ashamed to bring it to him?  Is what you did so horrible that you should never be forgiven?  How does your sin compare to the sins of the most evil people in history?  Nero, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer.  These are people whose sins defy description.  Each name evokes a thought of horror.  But Christ took all of their sins upon him when he died upon the cross.  All it would have taken for each of these men to be forgiven of all their sins would have been to repent and ask forgiveness.  In fact, there are stories that Jeffrey Dahmer did just that and became a Christian before he died.  When Christ died it was for all of your sins, past, present and future.  There is no sin that you or anyone has committed or will be commit that cannot be covered by the death of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago.
The crux of the issue is the sorrow that you feel for the wrong you committed.  By allowing yourself to feel guilty you think you are somehow atoning for your sin.  But the atonement for your sin was accomplished with Christ’s death on the cross.  There is nothing left to atone for.  And God’s forgiveness for your sin means that you are no longer guilty.  Do not let your sorrow anchor your spiritual life to that sin.  Let yourself move past that point and progress forward.
But remain sorrowful.  Remind yourself of the hurt you caused the one you loved.  Remind yourself of that sorrow any time you are tempted to commit that sin again.  Use that sorrow as your means of escape from temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13).  Learn from that sorrow and make certain that you do not commit that sin again.  Yes, God will forgive you if you commit that sin again.  But the one you love is human.  And they may not forgive you if there is a next time.  And even if they do forgive you a next time, they may need to remove that sin from their life…