how to forgive yourself when God already has.

so many of us believe in the power of God’s forgiveness but still hold on to shame, guilt, and condemnation.

but that's a life of bondage because we can't truly recognise the gravity of Christ’s sacrifice and the freedom we now have in Him.

what i talk about:
✨ how unforgiveness of self is a rejection of God’s sovereignty
✨ the difference between conviction and condemnation (and how the enemy uses guilt to keep us trapped)
✨ the Old Testament vs. the new covenant of grace through Jesus
✨ why forgiving yourself isn’t about dismissing sin, but about surrendering it to God
✨ practical steps to release shame and walk in freedom

God’s forgiveness is final, sufficient, and complete. i pray this episode encourages you to embrace His grace fully and let go of the weight you’ve been carrying 💕

scriptures i mention:

• romans 8:1 – "there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
• isaiah 43:18-19 – "remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"
• psalm 103:12 – "as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us."
• 2 corinthians 5:17 – "therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. the old has passed away; behold, the new has come."
• hebrews 10:14 – "for by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified."
• isaiah 53:5 – "but He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed."
• 1 john 1:9 – "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
• ephesians 1:7 – "in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace."
• galatians 5:1 – "for freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."
• joel 2:25-26 – "I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten."

Transcript

0:09

Hey, homegirls. Welcome back to the podcast, the Less of Me podcast, where we are all about surrendering under the will of God and remembering his sovereignty. And I'm gonna just get straight into this episode because I know that some of you would have clicked on this, like, eagerly wanting to find out an answer on how you can learn how to forgive yourself. And some of you reluctantly clicked on this video because. Or this episode, if you're listening, because you know that this might be a problem, but it's hard for you to come to terms with. First of all, thank you for letting go of your pride. Thank you for humbling yourself under God. And also for those of you who eagerly jump to click on this, thank you for that as well. Because this topic is, like, a really hard one, and it's really hard to navigate, especially because a lot of us, like, theoretically know what the word of God says, knows that God has forgiven us, but we are still holding on ourselves, which can be really difficult. And I thought of this episode, actually, because I realized almost in the last year, wow, like, I have been completely transformed by God's grace. And you're talking to someone who battled heavily with shame for so long. Even when I was first making YouTube videos about God, you know, I did the whole rebrand. I went very heavy in the Christian content. If you guys followed me for that long. But you could go back and look at those videos. I talked about sexual sin and a lot of that, and I talked about, you know, learning to forgive yourself, but I hadn't, like, fully forgiven myself. I was still in the complete depth of despair to the point where, like, I was extremely depressed at, like, various parts of my Christian journey and for a lot of different reasons. You know, you, like, life happens. You get down. But it always went back to that. For me. It was like the pinnacle of my life of I have made such grave mistakes, and I can get past this. I mentioned in an episode, two episodes ago, I kind of talked about. Well, I talked about faith, and I talked about having faith for things, and I kind of talked about my whole journey with fertility. No, I'm not trying for a child. Don't you worry about that. The ring is not on my finger yet. I'll check in with you guys when it is. But I was kind of talking about my whole journey with my reproductive health. And I'm kind of in, like, a weird stage right now where I'm praying for it and I'm believing for it, but obviously, I'm not trying to have a child. And I Won't be for a while. So how. How do you, like, navigate feeling like there might be a problem, but you haven't even been able to overcome that problem? Obviously. I've learned, if you listen to that previous episode, that God is a healer and God is a restorer. And I don't worry nowhere near as much as I used to. But a large amount of that led me into shame, naturally, because I caused a lot of it. I won't spoil too much if you haven't listened to the previous episode, but I cause a lot of this pain that I then went through. And also it's like the physical pain on top of the emotional pain. And I remember one time just crying to Naz, my boyfriend, about previous relationships, which never is like a vibe. Crying to your current boyfriend about your ex boyfriends. But he is so faithful to me and understood that it wasn't coming from like, I miss them. It wasn't like that. It was like I was disgusted in myself. I was disgusted in putting myself in those situations. I felt like I'd been treated so bad, and as a result, I treated myself bad. I have been through a lot and my sexual identity was something that I found really hard to grapple with as a believer. Going from a very hypersexual mindset into a life that should not be like that. And it's a life of purity. And it's not just living in purity, it's acknowledging that in Christ you are pure. But how do I do that if I haven't dealt with all of that stuff over there? And for me, I knew that God had forgiven me. Like, that's literally the preface of Christianity. Understanding the cross and the significance of the cross, but understanding it here and acknowledging it and letting it change you in here is two completely different things. And I want to start this episode off by talking about the sovereignty of God. Learning to forgive yourself is learning that when. When God says He has forgiven you, his sovereignty surpasses your feelings. His sovereignty surpasses your emotions. And by that I mean you can feel like you are dirty. You can feel like you can't forgive yourself. You can feel guilty and beat yourself up and think that God is upset at you. But if the Word says that he forgives you, if his actions, by sending his one lonely son on the cross to die for your sins, to die for the mistakes that you've made, his sovereignty goes beyond all of what's down here. You take him at his word. And we're going to dive into that in this episode to really get you to understand the gravity of when God forgives you, when God forgives sins, you don't take that back. And you learn to embrace the characteristics of God, the love of God, the truth and the power of God. And in turn let that define how you see yourself. Because one thing I learned is when I was holding on to the guilt and the shame, I was basically saying, without saying, that Christ sacrifice wasn't enough. And that's kind of hard. That's hard to do. And I don't want to beat you up again, again. Because if you're dealing with shame, if you're dealing with unforgiveness of self, you're already beating yourself up over and over again. But I want you to understand the gravity of what you do. When you don't forgive yourself, you are rejecting all the good things of God. It's almost like in psalms as a. I don't know what Psalm is. 72, I don't know. But anyways, it's a psalm that talks about how, like, my soul rejects being comforted. My soul doesn't want to be comforted. And it's like that prideful aspect of Lord, like, I don't really care what you say. This is how I feel. But when you see David go through the ups and downs of his life, from triumphant times to times of despair and shame, by committing grave sins, to times of sorrow, to times of fear, all the way to times of praise and rejoicing and worship and sacrifice and a recognition of the holiness of God surpassing all other things. When you go through those motions, I don't want you to ignore those motions. I just want you to submit those emotions to the foot of Jesus. Because when you keep doing that over and over again, you will acknowledge that his sacrifice was enough and you will stop trying to get yourself to come to terms. But let God show you that he came to terms with it thousands of years ago on that cross. And I'm going to start with this scripture. Romans 8, verse 1, Romans 8. In general, Romans 6 to 8. Romans, Romans. Read Romans. If you are struggling with the flesh, you're struggling with condemnation, you're struggling with identity in Christ after living a life of sin. Romans, just. It just does it for me every time. If you saw my Bible and the annotations on Romans, the other letters from Paul must be feeling neglected. Because for whatever reason, I've always gone back to Romans. And it has helped. I know the reason it has helped me in the times of complete despair, the times of not knowing who I am and Romans 8, verse 1 says, There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I think some of us assume that living in self condemnation is almost humility to God. Some of you are breaking, wanting to break away from it, and some of you hate it. And you, you know that this is against the will of God. But I think there's some of you that probably are looking at your sin, thinking you're doing God a disservice by moving on because you want to recognize the gravity. And some of you are caught in this cycle of thinking that you're repenting, but you're going back to things of old. Repenting is moving forward, moving on. If God says that I have forgotten your sins as far from the east as from the west, I have redeemed your sins, meaning I have paid the price. You digging it up again is not doing God a favor. You are restricting your spiritual journey. And as I was talking, I was thinking, I've actually got it above my bed, just there. The scripture goes across the frames. Isaiah 43, where it says, behold, a new thing is coming. Don't you see? And it says, forget the former things. That scripture for me was paramount to me moving on. And I. And I. It was like when I tell you it was hard, it was really hard, especially some of the things I had gone through. I felt like I was doing myself a disservice as well to move on from it. Part of it was guilt. Part of it was like a fight for my former self in the sense of the life before. I got caught up in different situations of sin. I felt like I was not doing like the pure Elodie a favor. Like, you need to realize the gravity of the sin and what you got yourself into. So, like, you do her a favor. I don't know. Honestly, I bet there's like all of you guys have like different thought processes that you go through when you're talking to God, when you're talking to yourself, when you're battling in your mind things like, like excuses that we make up for ourselves for just not accepting the freedom that we have in Christ, but we have freedom in Christ. And that is the reality. I think it's like the whole thing of freedom in Christ. You don't fight for freedom. You get freedom. As soon as you come to Christ and you give your life to the Lord, you walk in the freedom through the cross. It's up to you if you want to live out and recognize that freedom in the spiritual realms, you've already got it. God is just like, baby girl, I just want you to see it. I want you to fix your eyes on things above and not things below. And I've written down a few things that people might struggle to forgive themselves on. Obviously, I've talked about mine being sexual sin. It could be a wild lifestyle in general. It could be lying. It could be that you cheated, committed a crime. It could be addiction. It could be all of those things. But it also could be rejecting God. It could be pride. It could be the treatment of others. And I think that the enemy. I was going to say the enemy's smart, but the enemy is not. Because as soon as you understand his tactics, they are the same tactics. Like, you know, when you've got a football footballer and then like the first season, they are just like, scoring goal after goal. They're fighting off the defense. They're constantly, like, doing these crazy things that just, like, bewilder people. But the crazy things are maybe like one or two things. And then as soon as people like other teams and other players start studying this player and they realize that he's always going to fake left, he's always going to do this, he's always going to put his right foot there, they start to clock his tactics. And those tactics are no longer covert tactics that are under the radar that no one can suss out. They are now over. In everyone's view, everyone's understanding, everyone knows that he's going to behave like that and do that and try and trick you this way. So you're almost expectant of it. And when you're expectant of it, you're now able to beat him. And then second season, he falls off. I hope for all the men out there watching. That was a good analogy, because I could have given analogy about makeup or hair, and I chose to give one about football. Even though women play football, women football is actually, like, on the rise. And I actually think it's quite good, really good. Some great women footballers out there, but football is not my. It was my forte until we lost in the Euros, let me just put it that way. I literally turned it straight off when that first whistle went for the end of it. I thought we were going to win. I was praying. I thought I was going to start breaking out in tongues in the middle of that game because I was so determined that England was going to win. And I even booked the day off work afterwards because I was convinced that we would be celebrating. And so safe to say I've not watched a single match since then. So all that analogy was, was just for my boyfriend when he listens to this. So he'll be like, wow, that was a good analogy, babe. So, like, great. Thanks. But anyways, my point is, is that footballer who has the same tactics over and over again, that is a devil. And once you suss out that he does the same things over and over again, you will not be shocked. And with this whole thing of things that you are struggling to let go of, the enemy will mimic God. It's like when the Bible talks about a wolf in sheep's clothing. He will try and bestow himself in a righteous light to make you feel guilty about a sin. So he's acknowledging that what you've done is a sin. And because you're acknowledging it that it's a sin, you're getting filled with the condemnation that he gives you. And that feels righteous because it's a sin. And you would assume that the enemy would not make you feel condemned because the enemy loves sin. The enemy loves sin so he can enslave you with condemnation. The enemy loves sin so he can turn around and slap you in the face with it when times get tough. He is the ultimate backstabber. He is the ultimate gaslighter. That's exactly what his job is. And when you realize that when you're going back on a sin back and forth, like beating yourself up over it, this is literally the devil trying to get you to stay there rather than accept the gifts and the promises of God. The Bible is a love story. The Bible is a story of God, God's love for his people, despite the people's rejection of God. It's about God's pursuit of people. God's desire to bless people, God's desire to give us gifts that we can spread his word that we can be ambassadors of him. God throughout the whole Bible wants to bestow blessings and favor unmerited favor on his people. So why would that same God want us to stay stuck in the place that we are in? There ain't no God a man. I can tell you that for free. But the enemy will try and twist what God does and says about sin and turn it on your head to make you feel worse. But God, on the other hand, will convict you. But that conviction should open your eyes up to God. Like sin. Acknowledging sin and repenting of sin shouldn't make you look in yourself because you'll always just see bad stuff like things that you've done or things that you're capable of or any temptation, and you'll just keep going around in this cycle because you're looking at a human. When you're looking at God, you're looking at God. You're looking at the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. You're looking at Alpha and Omega, who is above all principalities and powers. So when you look at him, you're not going to be sat there stressing about your sin because you're looking at God, who heals and redeems all sin and calls you his. I talked about in my previous episode about when God calls you a child of God. That is a spiritual name, meaning that you have a spiritual place in heavenly realms and God wants you to acknowledge that identity that you have. But whilst you keep looking down here, you're never going to get it. And here is a scripture. Psalm 103, verse 12. It was Psalm. No, that was something else. The one that I said about my soul, like, refuses to be comforted. That definitely wasn't psalms, though. Psalm 103, verse 12. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. And 2 Corinthians, 5, 17. Shout out to 517 Interiors. That's my man. That's my man. Go follow him. I'll put it on the screen and I'll put it down below. My boyfriend is an interior designer. The best interior designer, let me add. This man is incredibly talented and he has named his business 517 Interiors to reflect. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. And what I really want to talk about in this episode is the gravity of the law. And you may be thinking we're talking about forgiveness here. What has the law got anything to do with forgiveness? Especially forgiveness of myself. Let's take a trip down memory lane back to the Old Testament. I know some of you, your Old. Testament is catching dust because for whatever reason you don't want to read it. You're always starting from Matthew. I'm going to. Some of you aren't even reaching revelation because that. You don't want to read that either. But the Old Testament is full of wisdom. But what is also full of is a recognition of what we have now. See, I think when you don't recognize the former, you are less grateful for. What you have now. The law. If you read anything from Exodus, especially if you're reading Leviticus and Numbers, you are going to realize, wow, what I have in Christ, but also the holiness of God. But that holiness being mixed with love, Because I think when we see the word holiness, when we think of the holiness of God, we are thinking of a scary and angry God. What we don't realize is God is to be so holy, love has to be involved. When we call God our hope, our rock, our fortress, our stronghold, when we call him the very thing that we can lean on to give us ultimate power, ultimate joy, ultimate restoration, ultimate guidance, that being that is God has to be holy. And that holiness in the Old Testament is shown through the standards of God to please God on his own, without anyone to come and atone for us. The standards are high. The sacrifices that were required for atonement, the laws in which you had to follow to have atonement were impossible. Impossible for the Israelites who after a while had lived in that had had that be their culture for thousands of years. You would think that after a while that being your life, your father's life, your father's father's life, your father's father's father's life, all the way through the ancestry, it literally being a core of who you are. When Jews talk about their religion, they are not just talking about a religion, they are talking about a way of life, they are talking about a race, they are talking about an identity. Everything about the Jewish faith is everything to them. And whilst it being everything to them, they still couldn't make it everything to them because they still fell short. The whole idea of the law was sin separates people from God. And to have forgiveness, you have to have a blood sacrifice to wipe that sin away. So what we're following, Christ fulfilled that law. So before you would have to be sacrificing lambs, you would have to be having big acts of sacrifice, like the Passover, different celebrations throughout the year. You had to get someone to intercede for you. You couldn't do it on your own. So there was a clear separation from God even when you were trying, because relationship wasn't restored and the trying isn't good enough for God. The whole point of the law was to show people that they were not good enough to follow it, that they were not good enough to reach God's standards. Because God's standards are impossible. So when Christ fulfilled the law, he broke the chains of bondage and his sacrifice is final, it's sufficient and it's complete. And if something is final and sufficient and complete, and the Father, the very one who gave Moses and the Israelites these extremely tough laws to follow, if God approves this final, sufficient and complete sacrifice, that he is willing to start A new chapter with humans. The very humans that have hurt him, mocked him, worshiped other gods, fallen into extreme acts of disobedience and extreme acts of sin. They have fought with one another, they have toiled, they have use their bodies as objects, use other people's bodies as objects. After all of that, God is willing to say, I want my children to come back to me. And I know that it's been hard for them to walk in such a difficult way of life. Yes, they have fallen short, but I expected it. And I want to start a new chapter with them. I want to have a restored relationship with them. If we can see that through the word of God, that God himself. Turn. The new chapter, why can't you? If God himself let you not know what it takes, what it took. Like when you think of it in human shoes, would you have forgiven us? No. Would you have said, I've given you time and time, chance and chance over and over again, and you have spat on my name, you have rejected me. I have given you grace when there should be none. You don't deserve my one lonely son to have a once and for all sacrifice. You didn't deserve that. So do you see the gravity of change that takes place through the cross? That shows the heart from beginning of time from God? Because God didn't just turn nice in the New Testament. If you read the Old Testament, God has such acts of mercy. But it was also God's plan from the beginning to fulfill the law through Christ, which meant that his heart was for his people the whole time. But that change taking place is revolutionary. It literally. Well, it created Christianity, it created the faith in Jesus Christ. It started, well, technically fulfilled an old outdated religion and created a relationship with God. Religion now being defined by not what you do, but what you believe and how what you believe changes. How you do. That shift from God should not be looked at lightly by us. But instead it should be, how dare I see all of this? This whole story of humanity warring against God for the war being won. And I choose to start it again. I choose to hold on the past. I say, you know what, God, I know you want a relationship with me, but can we just go back and like, reevaluate this a second? The disrespect, the audacity and the lack of understanding. Because I think unforgiveness always comes from being uneducated. And I mean that in the nicest way. You may be someone who fully knows your word, but do you fully know your word? Do you understand the gravity of Jesus Christ, the gravity of what that brought. The gravity of moving from the law to the law being fulfilled and satisfied, the wrath of God being satisfied that he will forgive and forget. So if he can forgive and forget, the King of Kings, the creator of the universe, the one who knit you together in your mother's womb, if he can forgive when he has been hurt over and over again, not just by you, but every other person who has walked on this earth and will continue to walk on this earth, if he can have not just an overall love for humanity, but a love for you individually. And you're going to chuck that back in his face and say that it's not enough. I don't think you're understanding God. I, I don't think logically. When you look at it that way, there's got to be a, a step back and be like, okay, I need to, I need to start again with my understanding. I need to go back to basics. That's what I had to do. I had to re. Understand God's character. I had to then learn some things I didn't even fully understand. I had to learn again about God. Hebrews 10, verse 14 says, for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Niv says, for by one sacrifice he is made perfect forever, those who are being made holy, praise the Lord. Isaiah 53, verse 5 says, but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was a chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed by his stripes. We are healed. We are healed from all of that, from all of the past. When people talk about Jesus's crucifixion, I read an article one time, the scientific understanding of Jesus crucifixion, the pain that would have taken place in his body, the organ shutting down, moving from hour to hour of what would have been going on, the slow and painful death and the blood loss and how that would have impacted his physical self. There was nothing more that they could have done to not just injure Jesus, but cause him pain. Because there is a massive difference between one shot in the forehead done probably didn't even feel anything to a crucifixion that was over hours. And it started by beatings, it started by whippings, it started by whips that had spikes on them that when they whipped Jesus and dragged it, they ripped his flesh open. It started by mocking him. So this is not just a physical pain. This is emotional and Spiritual pain and humiliation to the God he is. When they put that crown on his head and they stuck the thorns into his forehead, nailing him to a cross that said king of the Jews. And I'm pretty sure they played games whilst he was dying. They cast lots against him. I'm pretty sure carrying that cross in front of not just people, but his family, his mother. Seeing your mother suffer, seeing you suffer, I can even imagine my mum seeing me go through that. Knowing that you can't do anything about it. Being nailed to that cross for hours, where you are sternly running out of oxygen and you're having to push your body up to receive oxygen, but as you are pushing yourself up, your ankles are breaking by the weight of your body. And let's not forget that his feet were pierced by nails and his hands were pierced to his. His skin was ripping, his bones were breaking as he was fighting for oxygen. I say all of this to say, what more did Jesus have to go through for you to forgive yourself? He did all of that to forgive you, and you're holding on. It's almost a form of pride, because it's almost saying, my opinion of myself is above what happened on that cross that day. My opinion of myself is more important than the old covenant becoming new. My opinion of myself is more important than the sorrow and desire that the Father has to reconnect with you in relationship. My opinion is more important than communing with the Holy Spirit and him interceding for me to remind me that I am a child of God. You may think that digging these things up will help you move on, will help you deal with it. And I'm not saying you don't need to see the groundwork. I'm not saying you don't need to be honest. I'm not saying you don't need to study the Word and recognize where you've gone wrong, turn around and repent. But I think, like, when it comes to the repentance aspect, you clearly feel sorry for your sin, but then you're lacking repentance in the area of I need to repent for my unforgiveness of myself. Like, it's almost like no longer about the repentance of sin because you've put yourself through hell, that was unnecessary and you're actually now abusing God's person, God's child. When God says, your body is temple of the Holy Spirit, Honor your bodies because you're a bolt with a price. You are not honoring yourself when you fight against yourself. Which means that you will always be void of joy and peace. This unforgiveness that you have is robbing yourself of joy and peace. That actually leads nicely on to what you can do about it. Okay, ld, you've talked at me for a hot minute. What can I do to actually move forward in this forgiveness of myself? As I said, be honest and be honest with God. Repent fully, but repent for that. Repent for robbing God, the experience of bonding with you. Repent of robbing yourself of an experience with God because you're caught in the past. God is wanting to speak with you and move in your life and bring you joy and bring you fruit and fill you with his word, fill you with his promises and his intentions for your life. But when you're stuck over there, you're missing out. Repent for that and acknowledge God. You know what? From today forward, I want to know you again. I want to hear what you have to say for my future. I want to hear the forgiveness that you have over my past. And I want to take that forgiveness as higher than any emotion that I have about my

unforgiveness. First, John 1: 37:43

9 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Second thing I would say is to meditate on God's grace. Like I talked about the law, the fulfillment of the law. I don't know if you can hear that, by the way, but that is fireworks. And no, it's not Bonfire night, leftover fireworks. I don't know. I'm not looking out the window though, because I'm recording. But I am a child and I will look around my whole house to see if I can see them. But anyways, God's grace, the whole point of the fulfillment of the law, is now this new, unlimited, undeserved concept of grace. Ephesians 1, verse 7 says, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace. The riches. I love that word. The riches of his grace, meaning that there is enough to go around. This grace is unlimited. It is unmerited. And it is what is going to transform you from a person who was living in sin to a person who was holding on to their sin and feeling like they couldn't move on and they were unforgiving of themselves, to a new person who walks in the ways of the Lord, but does not hold themselves in this bondage of guilt and shame. Like I said before, I think a lot of us understand, okay, God has forgiven our sins, kind of. I get it. But a lot of us don't have the biblical backing, and we don't meditate enough on the Word so we can fight these things when they come. Make it your priority to get in your word. Because when you know what God says, not just about sin in, like, a general sense, but what he says about you, what he says about your life, about moving forward, about all the amazing things that he wants for you, about the peace that he can give you, about the newness of life that he has already given you, even the peace he's already given you peace. All these things that we talk about, the peace, the joy, the favor, the love. You know, God, give me your strength. God has given you his strength from the point that he died on the cross and rose again on the third day. You then had spiritual access to all of those things, which is why when you're holding on to forgiveness, it's almost like this weird oxymoron of, like, you literally have the mind of Christ, but you're battling with this mind of sin. And not to mention, I didn't even mention this at all. Condemnation is a cycle. You don't get stuck on condemnation. You fall back into that sin again, then you get condemned, then you fall back into that sin. And then when you're in that sin, you're condemned as well. And it's literally just this merged little mess that's going on. You think you're doing yourself a spiritual favor by saying, in that condemnation of yourself, you are going to fall back into sin. You are going to lead yourself into a life that is void of God's fruit. It's only when you forgive yourself and move on that that is when God can work in you. Because anytime that you stumble, you then acknowledge God's favor and grace and ability to transform you. You get the conviction and you change. Condemnation keeps you there. And you have to be intentional with that desire to break away from that and move into a new understanding and a new environment that lifts you up and doesn't tear you back down. And that leads on to the third one again. Release yourself from bondage. Recognize that forgiveness is a gift. Please, guys. You don't earn it. And I think a large part of condemnation as well, not just like going back into the sin. It's when you fight the sin. You're prideful about it, and you almost take it, as, I am like one of God's best warriors, and I fight for him and I fought and I strive to get to where I am right now. Nuh, we ain't finna do that, girl. What we are gonna do is we're gonna recognize it as a gift. Nothing that we can earn. And we will humble ourselves under the Lord and then he will exalt us with his grace, not with your accolades. And then fourth and final walk in freedom, practically live out your forgiveness by choosing not to dwell on the past. This means the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you read, the way you pray, the way you worship is all in a recognition of who God says that you are. That this is now your identity. All that stuff from before pre Christ. Even in Christ, when you've made a mistake, even yesterday, even right before you clicked on this video, you are forgiven and you walk like it. You are a child of God and you talk like it. You are fearfully and wonderfully made and you pray like it. You have a plan and a purpose for your life given to you by God. So you worship like it. Christ is enough. I don't know how many times I say that to you and I'm going to end it by this amazing scripture. Galatians is a great book as well to really understand what we now have in Christ. For me it was a real eye opening book for me to contextually understand the Bible and how the Old Testament is different from the New and who I am in Christ. It's a very like theologically rich book which I really Recommend. And

Galatians 5: 43:57

1 says, for freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Some of you have been submitting to this yoke of slavery for a hot minute. But God is calling you out of it. He is calling you into a union with Him, a union of freedom. And he's calling you in love. He's not calling you in condemnation. Some of you really need to change your perspectives of God. Some of you are only not forgiving yourselves because you think God is angry. And then some of you know that you are living in unforgiveness and you feel bad about it, but then you think God is going to be angry about it when you get out of it. I wish God was sat right next to me. I mean he is and he's in me. He's all around me. Just to tell you himself, like, I'm not angry, I'm just expecting. I'm excited for you to come back to me. I'm gonna give you a little bit of a righteous snap and tell You. Why did you do that? But come on, let's live life together again. Let me tell you all the things that you missed out on. And let's work together to ensure that it still happens. Let's work together to give you an everlasting sense of peace so you never fall back into that again. Because when you fall back into that again, you fall out of relationship. Like, do you see, throughout this whole episode, I've been talking about how, like, almost God wants you to come back to him. And this condemnation is a separation from God. So you're a believer, but you don't have relationship. What does that mean? How does that work? When you're stuck in the unforgiveness and you're stuck in this shame and this guilt, you don't have a relationship with God, which means your faith is almost void. And again, don't be guilty about that. But know that God still calls you today to come over to sit with him, to talk with him, to cry with him. He wants to show you all the goodness that he has. And you may be thinking, oh, but I've left it so long, and now I feel really bad. And what if God can't use me because I've taken so long to come back to Him? I've taken so long to acknowledge these things. As long as you still have breath in your lungs, God is going to use you. Nothing's going to take you away from that. No devil, no thought process, no age, no situation in life. God can use you and will use you. In the name of Jesus, he will use you. You will not. What's that? Scripture. I'm gonna look it up. Joel, 2, verses 25, 26. And I will restore you to the years that the locust hath eaten. God will restore you. So no matter what has happened in the past, no matter how long it's taken for you to get to this point, he restores. God is a God of the impossible. God is a God where you think you've gone too far, and God says, no, you haven't. If Jesus went through all of that, but somehow time didn't count, somehow, if you didn't come to realization fast enough that the forgiveness wasn't for you, that the redemption wasn't for you, that the sacrifice wasn't for you, that the new covenant wasn't for you, like, what type of God would we serve? Our God is gracious, no matter what. Time has no bounds. So please don't beat yourself up for that. And remember that God is going to use you. And he's going to bless you and he's going to take care of you and he's going to show you life in His Word. I pray that when you open the Word again, that you are opening the Word with a sense of relationship. You're opening the Word with an understanding of this mighty but intentional God that you serve. This God that holds no grudges, but instead just wants to embrace you and lead you into some amazing chapters in your life. But I love you guys. Thank you so much for listening or watching. And yeah, I just pray that this blessed you. Please leave in the comments below if this was of benefit to you, what you've learned. I'd love to hear your stories in the comments. If you feel comfortable sharing, encourage one another in the comments as well. Because whilst I can sit and talk for ages, you guys are filled with wisdom and your own perspectives on these topics that we need. That we need the body of Christ. We need diversity of views, we need diversity of experiences, and we need diversity of the understanding of one God and one language. We can all uplift one another in our pursuit of Christ. If you want to catch up a bit more with me, head over to the Less of Me Instagram account where I'm posting on there all the time. You can also follow my personal account as well. Um, follow me on TikTok as well. I'm always posting on there and hopefully I see a lot more of you guys. But I love you. Have a blessed week and I will see you and talk to you guys. In the next episode. Bye.