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Transcript

Forgive Yourself: Take One More Step Part III · HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN®

• 0:05
  Welcome to Have Faith, Let It Begin. This is Ariel Santana.
• 0:10
  Can you believe I'm seven years old already? I'm old enough now to introduce me.
• 0:55
  Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Have Faith, Let It Begin. This is Angel Santana.
• 0:59
  And you know, for the last couple of episodes, we've been talking about forgiveness.
• 1:03
  We've talked about forgiving people who hurt us.
• 1:06
  We've talked about trust. We've talked about boundaries.
• 1:10
  We've even talked about recognizing when we owe somebody else an apology.
• 1:16
  But there's one person we haven't really talked about yet.
• 1:19
  And this might be the hardest person of all to forgive. You.
• 1:25
  That's right. What happens when you ask God for forgiveness?
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  Maybe you apologized. Maybe you've changed. Maybe years have gone by.
• 1:35
  But every once in a while, your mind takes you right back there.
• 1:39
  You start beating yourself up all over again. What did I do?
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  What did I say? Did I say that?
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  How could I have been so crazy dumb if I could just go back?
• 1:52
  Well, you can't. Neither can I.
• 1:55
  So today, I want to talk about something I think a lot of us struggle with.
• 2:01
  How do we forgive ourselves?
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  You're not the same person. Think about some of the decisions you've made 5,
• 2:08
  10, 15, maybe even 20 years ago.
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  Would you make all of those same decisions today?
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  Probably not. And you know why? Because you're not the same person.
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  You lived. You've learned. You've fallen. You've gotten back up.
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  You've experienced things that changed the way you see the world And sometimes
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  we look back at a younger version of ourselves Using all the wisdom we have today,
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  And punish that person for not knowing what took us years to learn Think about that,
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  Maybe you didn't know then what you know now.
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  That doesn't excuse everything. We still take responsibilities for our actions.
• 2:48
  But there's a difference between
• 2:49
  taking responsibility and sentencing yourself to a lifetime of shame.
• 2:54
  When God forgives us, here's something I've wrestled with.
• 3:00
  Sometimes we pray, and we'll pray, God, please forgive me.
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  And then we spend the next 10 years refusing to forgive ourselves.
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  At some point, I think we have to ask.
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  If I genuinely repented, asked God for forgiveness, learned from what happened,
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  and changed why I'm still trying to punish myself.
• 3:21
  In the Bible, 1 John 1, verse 9, that's the one, that when we confess our sins,
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  God is faithful and just to forgive us.
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  So maybe the question isn't, can God forgive me?
• 3:35
  Maybe the question is, can I believe that his grace applies to me too?
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  Because we'll tell everybody else, God loves you.
• 3:44
  God forgives you. Your past doesn't define you. And then we look in the mirror and say, accept me.
• 3:52
  Nope, you don't get to remove yourself from grace.
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  Your mistakes can become part of your testimony.
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  Now, forgive yourself doesn't mean pretending the mistakes didn't happen.
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  Actually, I think it's the opposite. You acknowledge it.
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  You learn from it. And then you ask, God, how can you use this?
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  Maybe your biggest mistake taught you compassion. Maybe your failure humbled you.
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  Maybe your broken relationship taught you how to treat people differently.
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  Maybe the thing you're most ashamed of is eventually going to allow you to sit
• 4:30
  beside somebody going through the exact same thing and say,
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  I've been there not let me tell you how to live but,
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  I've been there sit down let's talk that's powerful that's real and that's testimony,
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  so stop replaying the movie,
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  and some of us have this wonderful little movie this movie theater that's inside
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  of our heads you know the one it's 2 17 scene in the morning,
• 5:00
  and your brain suddenly,
• 5:03
  suddenly says, hey, remember the embarrassing thing you did in 2004?
• 5:10
  Oh, yeah, really? Now? And suddenly, we're replaying the entire scene.
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  Except here's the problem. You already know how the movie ends.
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  You can't change that scene.
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  But you can decide what happens in the next one. Your past is a chapter.
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  It doesn't get to write the rest of the book.
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  Your one more step. So today, I want you to think about something that you've
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  been holding against yourself, not something you've avoided responsibility for,
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  something you've already acknowledged, something you've prayed about,
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  something you've learned from, something you've carried along enough.
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  And maybe, just maybe today, your one more step is looking in the mirror and
• 5:53
  saying, I made a mistake.
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  But I'm not my mistake. Maybe you need to hear this.
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  You're allowed to grow. You're allowed to change.
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  You're allowed to become better. And yes, you are allowed to forgive yourself. Hard to do, right?
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  So let's pray. Heavenly Father, today we bring you something we don't always know how to talk about.
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  The things we still hold against ourselves, the mistakes, the regrets,
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  the words we wish we could take back, the decisions we wish we could change.
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  Lord, where we need to take responsibility, give us the courage to do so.
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  Where we owe someone an apology, give us the humility to offer it.
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  Where something can still be made right, give us the wisdom to try.
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  But where we have genuinely repented, learned, changed, and asked you for forgiveness,
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  help us to stop punishing ourselves for something you trying to heal.
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  Teach us to receive the same grace we so freely tell others about.
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  Use our mistakes to make us wiser. Use our scars to make us compassionate.
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  And use our stories to remind somebody else that their worst moment does not
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  have to become their final chapter.
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  Help us forgive others. Help us ask forgiveness when we're wrong.
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  And Father, help us forgive ourselves.
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  Give us the courage to take one more step forward. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
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  Well, we've spent three episodes talking about forgiveness, but maybe the person
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  who needed your grace the most was you.
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  You can't rewrite yesterday, but God's help and with God's help,
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  you can decide what you do today.
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  Your mistake is something you did. It is not who you are.
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  This is Have Faith, Let It Begin. And my name is Angel Santana Jr.
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  Talking about real people, real stories, and real faith.
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  Take one more step and never forget, have faith, let it begin.