Forgiven of all my sins

What a wonderful truth to know that all our sins are forgiven; the obvious ones, the hidden ones, the embarrassing ones, the awful ones.  All of them.  God has forgiven them all.

Why then do we struggle to move on from our shortcomings and weaknesses and continue to live under a sense of guilt, shame and unworthiness?

One reason can be that we need to forgive ourselves - we need to release ourselves from our own criticism and judgement and give the same gift of grace to ourselves that Jesus has given to us.  The problem can be that we want to punish ourselves because of our sins in a mistaken belief that it will make us feel better in the long run.  We have done wrong and we deserve to be punished so we withhold our own forgiveness. 

The truth is that we do deserve punishment, we deserve death for our sin but Jesus has taken the full punishment for all our sins on the cross.  To continue punishing ourselves when Jesus has already paid the most costly price so we do not have to be punished is nonsense. Let us agree with God that our sins are forgiven, let us forgive ourselves and leave behind the feelings of guilt and shame that the devil wishes to heap on us. Let us start agreeing with God and not with the devil.

But how?  It takes a conscious mental agreement on our part to stop and one of the best ways to do this is by declaring the truth.  Everyday as we declare 'I am forgiven of all my sins', our mind comes into agreement with our mouth and the truth sets us free. 

God wants us to walk free.  Free from sin, shame and guilt and the price has been paid in full. Let us leave behind the mistaken belief that we need to suffer for our sins, that suffering is redemptive. It is not.  Jesus death on the cross is redemptive and our belief and acceptance of this by faith is all we need to walk in freedom as God intended us.