231. He's Not As Hard On You As You Are On Yourself

1 Corinthians 4:3

I think most people really believe that hating yourself because of your sin is the right thing to do. We think God wants us to beat ourselves up when we fall and fail. As a result, I think most of us believe this is not only the right thing to do, but we think it’s holy. We think that being hard on ourselves over all our years of piled-up wrong is us showing God how serious we are about sin. Here’s the thing: God doesn’t agree with any of that. God says our sin isn’t even piled-up anymore - it’s been totally dealt with! The truth is, most of us are way harder on ourselves than Jesus is when it comes to our past. We think it’s holy to grovel and grieve and be miserable about all our failings, but the entire reason Jesus came and died was to deal with sin once and for all. The most holy heart in the universe has declared me forgiven! If I’m still punishing myself for sin, does that mean I think I’m somehow holier than Jesus is? Do we think being sad all the time is taking sin seriously? Jesus took sin seriously. He died for it. He sacrificed Himself for sin to make it a non-issue in our relationship with Him. If you want to know the truth, I think He’s probably tired of hearing us talk about it all the time! In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul says a beautiful thing: “I care very little if I am judged by you or any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.” Now that’s a holy attitude. Try it out sometime.