It amazes me how many people still hold to the view that God is sitting up in heaven just waiting to punish us when we mess up. As if every mistake we make is revisited and held against us by God as our eternal judgment. And that that no matter how sorry or remorseful we are that God still holds it against us. The fact of the matter is, it’s not really God that punishes us, but the outcomes and ourselves.

Gary Ryan Blair writes that, “Every choice carries a consequence. For better or worse, each choice is the unavoidable consequence of its predecessor. There are not exceptions. If you can accept that a bad choice carries the seed of its own punishment, why not accept the fact that a good choice yields desirable fruit?”

It’s our choices and our mistakes that punish us, not God. I know a lot of people, myself included, that let their past torment them. They are so haunted by what they’ve done that they begin to view themselves in light of the choices they’ve made instead of seeing themselves for who they now are. They have punished and are punishing themselves more than God or anyone else ever could.

Psalm 103:12 says, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Until we truly start to understand this, we will never be able to let go. Once we’ve confessed our sins and sought God’s forgiveness, they’re gone. God will never use them against us. People will try to use our mistakes against us, and we will too. But if we truly believe we’re forgiven, then we need to understand that there’s nothing anyone else can say or do that will change this.

As for people, if someone truly loves us, they will not hold our past against us either. One of the  characteristics of love found in 1 Corinthians 13:5 is that love “keeps no record of wrongs”. If someone loves us then they will forgive us too. They won’t hold our mistakes over our heads or use it for ammunition in an argument.

The hardest part in all of this is to forgive ourselves and let go. To begin viewing ourselves in the present instead of the past. To not let it haunt us to the point that we allow ourselves to be punished by others. To realize that we deserve more and to not settle for anything less.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16