I woke up from a dream yesterday morning where the Lord was telling me that all that was important for me – with respect to myself and others – was love, acceptance & forgiveness…

I remember attending a Church service back in late 1999 or early 2000 just before my wife and I got married where the Pastor invited up to the front anyone who felt they needed to forgive themselves…

I remember getting a lot of freedom that day as the concept of forgiving myself wasn’t one that I’d thought about before then…

To truly forgive myself is to remove all expectations that I have on myself from myself…

It is to accept myself and to accept the fact that only the Holy Spirit through my new self can make any change for the better in my life…

It is also to accept who I used to be and that who I used to be might still be seen although hopefully in diminishing amounts through me at various points in the remainder of my life on earth…

It is also to forgive myself for everything I’ve ever done, for the things which I haven’t been able to undo and for the effects on others which these actions have had or will have…

To understand God’s Sovereignty is very helpful in these considerations…

How could I come to a place where I’m so at peace with my failings that I’m not trying to stop myself from them but am completely surrendered to the Lord to work His new way through me in His time and for His glory?

It is in understanding that the Lord has absolute control or the last say in everything which either happens or doesn’t happen in His world…

All souls are His…

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof…

The enemy could only do to Job what the Lord permitted him to do…

The Lord didn’t purpose Job’s suffering or instigate it but He definitely allowed it…

What the Lord allows through my imperfections to be experienced as pain by those in my sphere of influence has the potential to draw them closer to Himself…

Our response to the sinfulness of others who are in our sphere of influence will either make us or break us as human beings…

And so it turns outward from being an inward facing thing to being our response to all those around us…

Having loved, accepted & forgiven ourselves we start to see that all the people around us need our love, acceptance & forgiveness also…

And so we see in that place that our freedom is in forgiving them for the impact they have had on our lives…

In accepting them and in loving them in spite of the impact they have had on our lives…

There is nothing to cause us to stumble in this place…

This is the place of freedom…

The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. (1 John 2:10 NASB)