The following is an excerpt from a book I’m currently reading: The Signature of Jesus, by Brennan Manning.
My own need for self-acceptance signed my conscience in the terminal of the Kansas City airport. I was en route from Clearwater, Florida, to Des Moines, Iowa, to lead a retreat. Bad weather rerouted my plane to Kansas City where we had a half-hour layover. I was wandering around the terminal in my clerical collar, when a man approached me and asked if he could make his confession. We sat down in the relative privacy of the Delta Crown Room and he began. His life had been scarred with serious sin. Midway through, he started to cry. Embracing him I found myself in tears, reassuring him of the joy in the kingdom over the return of a repentant sinner and reminding him that the Prodigal Son experienced an intimacy with his father that his sinless, self-righteous brother never knew.
The man’s face was transfigured. The merciful love of the redeeming God broke through his guilt and self-hatred. I prayed a prayer of thanksgiving for the Lord’s unbearable forgiveness, infinite patience, and tender love. The man wept for joy. As we parted, he glowed with the radiance of a saved sinner.
As I fastened my seatbelt in the DC-10, I heard an inner voice like a bell clanging deep in my soul: Brennan, would you do for yourself what you have just done for your brother? Would you so eagerly and enthusiastically forgive yourself, accept yourself, and love yourself? Then words that I heard Francis MacNutt speak at a gathering in Atlantic City, New Jersey, pierced my heart: “If the Lord Jesus Christ has washed you in his own blood and forgiven you all your sins, how dare you refuse to forgive yourself?”
I’m not going to expand a whole lot on this, because I think it speaks for itself. But there are just a few things I’ll add that I’m thinking about in relation to this. They may not be cohesive thoughts with one another, but they’re all rumbling around in my head after reading this.
First is that the love and forgiveness of God really is scandalous. The holy, righteous, perfectly good source of all that is has forgiven me, a fallen, selfish, sin-laden man. He has called me His son and has promised to never disown me. Wow.
Second is that self-acceptance is not just a handy cop-out for living with yourself after doing something you wish you hadn’t. Biblical self-acceptance is an understand that we are anything but perfect, but that for some reason God has still loved us and has forgiven us, so we ought to live in light of that reality instead of what our own mind conjures up. Manning writes just a few paragraphs after the previous excerpt: “Self-hatred subtly reestablishes me as the center of my focus and concern. Biblically, that is idolatry. Gentleness toward myself issues in gentleness with others. It is also the precondition for my approach to God in prayer. Small wonder that the late Paul Tillich defined faith as ‘the courage to accept acceptance.'”
Which leads to my third thought. “Gentleness toward myself issues in gentleness with others.” Ephesians 4:31-32 tells us, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”
I don’t think this is just a command. This is also an observation. We will forgive one another as God has forgiven us. If we believe and live in our own lives like God has forgiven us conditionally, like he is still reserving punishment for us as if the punishment put on Jesus was not powerful enough for our sins, like he is angry at us, like he calls us dirty and unworthy and he’s waiting for his moment to abandon us, that is precisely how we will forgive those around us. But if we see the Gospel for what it is, and we see our forgiveness as unwarranted and unearned, that God loves us and accepts us as dearly loved children despite our flaws, and that where sin abounds in us, his grace abounds more, then that is precisely how we will forgive those around us. Not only is it healthy for us to live in light of God’s forgiveness, it is essential if we ever want to walk in real love toward the unlovely all around us in the real world.
The Endeavor 