No longer...

So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. (Romans 8:1-3)

If you have ever stopped to wonder why Jesus had to take on the form of a man, there's your answer. He came to this earth in a body 'like the body we sinners have', so that he could be the sacrifice for our sins. In all he did in that one action, he provided an END to sin's control in our lives - so we are no longer controlled by our sin nature - we have been given a new one - Christ's.

Paul has just explained that he desires to do what is right - what the commandments declare he should do and how he should behave. Yet, in spite of his extreme desire to live 'right', he makes wrong choices time and time again. Why? The sin nature within is at war with the Spirit of God who indwells his spirit. It wants to continue to choose to do unwise things. Until we grasp fully that we are freed from its power, we will continue to condemn ourselves for those wrong actions that stem from our sin nature.

There is NO condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. Read it again and then do it again. You aren't condemned because you mess up from time to time because you belong to Christ and his life-giving Spirit has freed and is freeing you from the power of sin. It is a finished and a continual action. That seems a bit like a contradiction - finished and continual. Yet, God's work of renewal is available to us with each new day. We don't have to continue with the wrong choice or live under the guilt or shame of it. We give it Christ, allow his Spirit to cleanse us, and move on.

In that body...an end to sin's control was accomplished. Christ's sacrifice did it all. Lean into that truth and allow his Spirit to wash over your mind, emotions, and inner spirit. He does not condemn you; sin has no control (even though it still has an appeal from time to time); and you are a new creation because of his loving act on your behalf. Just sayin!

I will not allow you to control my life!

If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. (Romans 8:31-34)

Many of us need a reality check from time to time. The moment we begin to give into the accusations of others, finding fault with everything that happens in our lives, or rising up in some form of indignation about something they don't understand that has occurred with us, we need that check. Why? No man, woman, or child can ever accuse us. They may 'judge', but that is their issue. We cannot control how they think or act - we are only responsible to live and act as God directs us to.

To accuse is to find fault with something or someone. Not every accusation is based in fact, though. There are times when others accuse us of things we didn't control, or things they have no real inside information into, but they find fault anyway. To condemn is to indicate they don't approve of what we have done, or what has come into our lives as a blessing. Either way, God reminds us that the only basis for accusation or judgment is when he makes it!

Keep your heart right with him and stop listening to the voices around you that accuse or condemn. God looks at our heart - sees our intentions, knows our thoughts, understands our emotions. He knows when we 'do well' or 'not so well', but others may not possess the same insight. Why do we listen to their accusations or condemning words? Perhaps those hurling those accusations are really just a bit too 'bullying' in their behavior!

Words hurt more than we want them to, don't they? They get inside our brains, we muddle over them for a while, then before long, they have taken root in our heart. Remember, the bully wants to control you. God tells us the only 'control' over our lives should be that of his Spirit. Stop muddling over what you hear and start replacing those hurtful words with the Word of God. No one can condemn those redeemed by the Blood of Jesus. No one! Just sayin!

No more self-condemnation

All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God... God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So... we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first. If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers. (I John 4:15-21)

Fear of judgment - what might that look like? Constantly trying to 'do' better, but never really trusting in the work of Christ in your life. Thinking you must 'clean up your act' in order to approach the throne of God. As I said yesterday, you don't wash up before you take a shower - you let the shower do that work! Do you declare Jesus to be the Son of God, trust in his love for you as a sinner? This is the first step toward no longer 'fearing' judgment. Have you confessed your sins to him, acknowledging that you are indeed a sinner, in need of forgiveness? If so, you are on the path of right-living. Does that mean you will never make any mistakes again? Not hardly! We are human, facing many trials and temptations, and we will mess up on occasion.

The good news is that when we do, we have a path back through confession and what we call 'repentance' (turning away from that sin and turning toward God's help to overcome it). Don't live in fear of judgment just because you 'mess up' from time to time - go to God with it and let him wash you clean. Then move on - don't belabor the fact that you messed up. That only serves to bring you under the burden of self-condemnation and shame. These two don't belong in the life of a forgiven child of God. 

Maybe this is how we learn to love each other in this world - forgiving as God so graciously and lovingly forgives us each time we mess up. This world might be a better place if God's love was practiced a bit more, don't you think? Love might just begin with the act of forgiving someone who has wronged you. It could begin because you have wronged another, and they lovingly restore you with open arms. Either way, we are making a good start at being ambassadors of God's love in a hurting and messed up world. 

We might find the path of forgiveness hard to accept because we have lived for so long under the condemnation of our misdeeds. I have been guilty of doing that on occasion - remembering all the things I did wrong and how many people were likely hurt by my misdeeds. Condemnation of this sort is 'self-made' - it is not God inflicted. God doesn't leave us under a load of guilt and shame - his grace unburdens us from both, but we have to let go of the burden in order to be free of it. We might just help another see the immenseness of God's love when they see that transformation occur within our lives! Just sayin!

Compassion or Condemnation?

"Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation." (Henry Ward Beecher) Most of us need more doses of compassion and far less doses of condemnation! One of the things I used to tell my kids is that the world would find ample opportunity to poke fun at them, finding fault with what they did or what they wore, but within the walls of the home in which they lived, we wanted to do less fault finding and far more accepting. Why? Simply because I knew the 'condemnation' moments would outweigh the 'compassion' moments in this lifetime.

Jehovah is kind and merciful, slow to get angry, full of love. He is good to everyone, and his compassion is intertwined with everything he does. (Psalm 145:8-9 TLB)

Compassion is a "God-word". It involves that deep-seated desire to alleviate the suffering and pain of others, even if it costs you everything. Seldom are we truly encountered by such a great desire here on this earth in those we associate with. God isn't moved by sympathy, but by compassion. He sees great need before him, often knowing others heap piles and piles of condemnation upon us in measures disproportionate to what is deserved. He also knows our tendency to heap even more condemnation upon that pile ourselves!

In this lifetime, those 'condemnation moments' come more regularly than we'd like, but remember this...God's 'compassion moments' are innumerable and are always available to us. To the harshness of this world God speaks kindness to us. To the indifference of those who turn a deaf ear and blind eye to sin around them, God speaks attentive tenderness and consideration. He isn't immune to our cries for mercy anymore than he is blind to our constant hurt because of all the condemnation coming our way daily. 

Before we condemn one another, let us remember that there but for the grace of God we walk ourselves. It is because of his grace we live above condemnation - in compassionate fellowship with him daily. It is because of his kindness toward us that we know the peace of God in the midst of turmoil that would otherwise destroy us. Think about how much words cut, glances in our direction cause us doubt, or silence speaks more than words ever could. Now think about how much grace counters each of these. Which would you rather speak into someone's life today? Condemnation or compassion? I hope it is the latter. Just sayin!

I need a donor

Therefore, now no condemnation awaits those who are living in Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King,  because when you live in the Anointed One, Jesus, a new law takes effect. The law of the Spirit of life breathes into you and liberates you from the law of sin and death.  God did something the law could never do. You see, human flesh took its toll on God’s law. In and of itself, the law is not weak; but the flesh weakens it. So to condemn the sin that was ruling in the flesh, God sent His own Son, bearing the likeness of sinful flesh, as a sin offering.  Now we are able to live up to the justice demanded by the law. But that ability has not come from living by our fallen human nature; it has come because we walk according to the movement of the Spirit in our lives. (Romans 8:1-4 VOICE)

Hans Selye, a Canadian scientist, once said:  "As much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation."  This is so very true - no matter how much we think approval matters to us, condemnation is what we all focus on more than anything else.  Condemnation is really that moment when someone accuses you of being this way or that - usually contrary to the way we were "supposed" to be.  It isn't a comfortable feeling because it carries a sense of disapproval and maybe even a little bit of rejection.  Henry Ward Beecher said, "Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation."  I think he was just restating the gospel message that Christ came not to condemn the world, but to rescue it because it was headed toward a certain destruction it could not fully appreciate - and he did it in love!

The reason we live "above" condemnation is because of the new life living inside of us - the life of Christ.  A long time ago I discovered something quite interesting about bone marrow transplant patients.  You see, when a bone marrow recipient receives the donor's harvested cells, those cells actually go to work to shut down the blood cell production of the recipient's body and begin the blood cell production of the donor's cells.  In other words, in the course of time, a recipient with A+ blood who receives donor cells from an O+ donor will see his own blood type change to O.  What once was is no longer - something we need to really lay hold of in our own lives as this gives us the hope that once we once were is not what we are today simply because of the blood of Christ! It is as though we have received a "donor cell transplant" and our "internal type" now changes as a result of the "healthy" cells which have been transplanted!

This should give us cause for hope since the "old us" is really not what is alive any longer - that which is alive is Christ in us.  Guilt and condemnation are like the "rejection" cells at work whenever a transplant recipient receives new cells into his body.  Those cells have one mission in mind - something "foreign" has entered the body they are so determined to "protect" and they want to resist those cells' actions.  Guilt and condemnation want to surround the "good cells" of God's grace beginning to circulate in our lives, as they see these cells of grace as not really "belonging".  The thing is - the "donor cells" of grace are much stronger than those of guilt and condemnation.  They are there to do a job and eventually they will accomplish that which they are sent to do - to change us from the inside out until what is on the inside no longer is the same as it once was! 

This should be good news for many who think the power of sin is stronger than the power of grace.  Those "donor cells" of grace are way more powerful - simply because they aren't flawed, damaged, or destructive in nature.  They are perfect and as such, they exhibit a strong "defense" against the destruction of all that resembles the "sinful cells" once at work within us.  Sure, there is a period "warring" inside of us until those cells of grace begin to take hold, but when they do, there is no stopping the transformation.  Just sayin!

Not gonna give you the key!

All too often, we give into feelings of condemnation or the attempts to ridicule.  We find ourselves even doing this to ourselves, on occasion, pointing out our many flaws, devising ways to describe how "awful" we are because of a course of action we have taken.  I have to ask this - if God doesn't condemn us, what gives us the right to do it to another, or even ourselves?  Condemnation is really a form of expressing disapproval.  We may not do it in words, but our actions often speak louder than words.  Blame is associated with any condemnation passed down upon another, or even ourselves. We place blame for the "way" something is on someone, thinking assigning blame somehow makes it okay to point out the flaw in that individual's character.  I am trying to learn this lesson myself, but when we condemn self or others, we are really "sentencing" them - we are passing judgment. Since that job belongs to God and him alone, we don't have that role or right. Those who live under our condemnation (even when it is us living under our own) find themselves constantly trying to be free of that "sentence", much like a prisoner might want to file appeal after appeal hoping he may one day be free from the confines of his imprisonment. It is wise for us to learn to not come under condemnation in the first place - but also to learn not to be the instruments of that condemnation!

If God is on our side, then tell me: whom should we fear? Who has the authority to condemn? Jesus the Anointed... So who can separate us? What can come between us and the love of God’s Anointed? Can troubles, hardships, persecution, hunger, poverty, danger, or even death? The answer is, absolutely nothing. But no matter what comes, we will always taste victory through Him who loved us. For I have every confidence that nothing—not death, life, heavenly messengers, dark spirits, the present, the future, spiritual powers, height, depth, nor any created thing—can come between us and the love of God revealed in the Anointed, Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31, 34-35, 37-39 VOICE)

Since condemnation belongs to God alone, we might think it is just a matter of "mind over matter" to overcome this sense of being condemned by others or ourselves.  I am here to tell you it may not be all that simple!  We willingly succumb to some condemnation because we don't believe what God says about us - that we are his chosen, made right through the Son of God who gave his life on our behalf, and are a new creation (the old is gone, the new has come).  We see ourselves as others tell us we are - if they point out the faults, we take it all in.  To make matters worse, we often tell ourselves the same story and find the condemnation multiplied!  Yes, a mindset change is necessary - we have to learn to think of ourselves as God does.  Yet, we also need to learn to respond to condemnation (impractical, unfair, and sentencing actions or words) with a counter-attack of sorts if we are to reject these unwholesome thoughts and actions.  Thinking is one thing, believing it with your heart and allowing it to affect your actions is another.

The truth we need to learn:  Nothing (no thing) can separate us from the love of God.  Nothing (no thing) can come between us and victory in our lives.  That may seem like an over-simplified approach, but hear me out on this one.  When we finally begin to believe that truth, it dynamically changes our lives.  I may say those words over and over, but until they anchor in my heart and begin to affect my actions, they are just words - truth indeed, but not the foundation upon which I build my life.  IF nothing can separate us from God's love, then no stumble in our walk or compromising action on our part can interfere with how God sees us.  He sees us as inseparable from him - we have a heart connection which cannot be severed.  That said, to believe otherwise is to believe a lie.  IF nothing can come between us and victory, then no amount of falls can keep us down - we always have a means by which to get up again and start anew.  It is called grace!

Sometimes we need to tell ourselves something a whole lot of times before we even begin to latch hold of the matter we are considering.  I used to read out loud when I was studying in school.  Why?  I "heard" what I was studying, not just saw it with my eyes.  I found when I heard something, it took on a different meaning.  Those things which didn't make sense when I said them had to be repeated (re-read) until I got them.  Some of us would do well to repeat God's truth about how he sees us over and over until we actually began to see that truth as pertaining to us!  Nowhere in scripture does it say God's love is different for one or the other of us.  It is the same for all mankind.  We try to tell ourselves otherwise - that he couldn't possibly love us as much as he loves the other person we are considering right now.  Nope - not true!  His love extends to all mankind - his means of restoration is the same for all of mankind - his extension of grace when times of compromise come is the same regardless of how "badly" we fall - for ALL have sinned - ALL need a Savior - ALL need grace in measures far outside of our means to ever earn or achieve!

We may have to remind ourselves of these truths from time to time in order to move beyond condemnation.  Remember this - if God has pardoned our "sentence" through the blood of his Son, Jesus, then we are pardoned - no one can "lock us up" again!  When we give them (or ourselves) the key, they will find the cell which it fits and attempt to place us there behind those bars of condemnation.  If we don't hand them (or ourselves) the key in the first place, they will have a hard time getting us behind those bars!  Just sayin!