Forgiving ourselves...

Last night in bible study we were talking about forgiving ourselves. Jill, who is usually our main moderater, was sick so somehow it fell to me (I guess because we were at my house) to lead the discussion....I don't mind if I have had time to prepare, but of course they told me this when we all got started last night. I'm fine, it all went well, I just felt like I was constantly looking for another place for us to go to after the next question...anyway, we were talking about forgiving ourselves and how we feel about it...There was a statement in our lesson guide and it says,

How do you feel about the forgiveness of your sins? (mark one)
__I believe that I'm forgiven.
__Because of things that I've done I sometime wonder if God really can forgive my sins.
__I sometimes try to work harder at "being good" to make up for my sins.
__There are some sins I don't think God can forgive.
__I really do want to believe that I'm forgiven, but I'm having a hard time accepting it.

I thought about this question and read the choices. As a christian, I really believe that I am forgiven. That is it. No questions asked. By my faith in Him, I am forgiven if I ask Him for forgiveness. I think that satan tries to get in our head and wants us to justify things and I think that is where he gets us sometimes.

Psalm 34:17 "The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles."

Our main problem is that we are human and we remember EVERYTHING. That is of course, until we get old and start to forget, but until then, we can't forgive ourselves because we keep remembering ALL the things that we have done that are wrong. I'm sooo amazed that God forgives and wipes the board clean. How awesome. We are clean because Jesus died for us. I know we don't deserve it what so ever and we will never be worthy of God's blessing and will never deserve the forgiveness of God...all we can do is accept his forgiveness and be thankful for His amazing and awesome love for us. God loves us so much....that is it.

Here is Grace's prayer from last night:
Dear God,
Thank you for a fun day at school. Thank you for my mom, my dad, my sister, my baby brother and my dog. Please Lord, forgive me for trying to choke my sister when mommy was downstairs and she didn't see me. I'm sorry.
I love you, God. In Jesus name, amen.

Even my 5 year old asks for forgiveness....and I guess I need to listen a little bit more for the whole "choking my sister" thing when they are upstairs playing!