Psalm 32
1 Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the one whose sin the LORD does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.
3 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin.
We are truly blessed to have our sins forgiven by God. We don’t deserve to be forgiven, but He loves us. His Son has paid the penalty for our sins, so we are free from condemnation.
I will dare to say that we are not truly blessed, however, until we fully open our hearts to receive His forgiveness. Not until we honestly believe that we are forgiven. Often we know in our heads that our sins are not held against us, but deep in our hearts we still feel shame. We don’t think we deserve the forgiveness, so we hold God’s gift of redemption at arm’s length. In doing this, we forfeit the blessing of peace, joy, and living a blessed, happy life.
I’ll go one step further and say that the reason we do not receive God’s forgiveness is because we have not forgiven ourselves. We have feelings of disappointment, anger, even self-loathing toward ourselves. When our hearts carry these feelings, we often project them on to God or other people in our lives. We begin to believe that we ARE the way we feel about ourselves. We begin to believe that others see us the way that we see ourselves. We assume that God and others are judging us… all because we have not forgiven ourselves.
The Lord has challenged me to take action. Visualize an act of self-forgiveness. Write myself a letter. Be done with the failures I am still holding on to in some ceremonial way. Only then will I stop projecting my self-condemnation onto others and finally be released from the fear that others are judging me.
Read what God says about us in Ephesians 1:3-4…
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Someone recently explained to me that the word “holy” here means sacred. The word “blameless” means unblameable. You and I are sacred to God. We are unblameable once we confess the sins and failures of our lives. We are unblameable because Jesus died for each and every one of the times that we fall short. Though Jesus took our sins upon Himself when He died, the bible says that He despised the shame. He refused to take on the shame of our sins.
However, the enemy has convinced us to pick up that shame. He continually tells us that it belongs to us. What a lie… a wretched bondage that the enemy has created!
Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven!
Will you lay down the shame today? Will you forgive yourself and experience the blessedness of Psalm 32? That is what God desires for you and me today!