Self Forgiveness - Why should I continue to condemn myself when the Christ no longer condemns me?

​Let’s look at the 1st question to ask yourself when struggling with self-forgiveness. “Why should I continue to condemn myself when the lord no longer condemns me?” But before you and I jump into this, it will serve us well to have a clear definition to work with. Self-condemnation is blaming yourself after you have failed to do or be something you know you should do or be. Instead of responding to conviction by confessing, repenting, and being empowered by God’s grace, self-condemners choose to heap condemnation on themselves.
 
Self-condemnation makes you inward focused and works driven. I wish I would not think of myself as much as I do, but this is something I often find myself doing. As I see my shortcomings each day, I analyze what I could have done differently—or even more, how I could be different. I dealt with this a lot when I went through my divorce and how I handled it with my kids. I should be a better Dad. I should spend more time. I should do more for them. But, I keep telling myself I’m not doing these things. And by me telling myself I’m not doing these things I keep telling myself I have failed. So, then I start to go into works mode. I tell myself I can do better tomorrow. I will do things to be a better dad, and then again, I fail. So, I sulk in the disgrace I have been to myself, to my kids, and to the Lord. In the process, I somehow believe that thinking about myself in these ways will produce a being who is, in fact, different. But instead, I find myself jumping into an ocean of pride–and it’s not the kind of pride of delights in thinking much of myself but the pride that finds great satisfaction in heaping condemnation, rather than grace.
C. J. Mahaney, in his book Living the Cross Centered Life, says this: “Don’t buy the lie that wallowing in your shame is pleasing to God.” God is pleased, sister, when we die to ourselves and call upon the name of Christ to make us a new creation at the moment of salvation, and to continue making us new each day (2 Cor. 5:17). We no longer have to fix our gaze inwardly; we can fill our minds with thoughts of the great grace God has and continues to show us. Mahaney reminds us. We can hold fast to the promise in Romans 8:1, that, “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Some of us have been carrying so much for so long that we think it’s normal to go through life weighted down. And the truth is that, apart from the cross, condemnation IS normal”. But, we don’t have to live apart from the cross. God sent his only son, Jesus, to be the perfect sacrifice—to stand in our place and receive the condemnation and punishment we deserved. God did that, not so you and I could sulk in our shame, but so we could marvel at the grace of God in caring for lowly sinners such as you and I. He did this, so we could live in the grace He has shown to us.
 
Let’s take our eyes off our own failings and look instead at the cross where those failings were laid to rest once and for all