No Condemnation!

(Romans 8:1) “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Today is another early wake-up call, by default rather than intention. It is these types mornings that I anticipation I will see something a little deeper than normal. My mind wonders, it ponders, what is my great God and Father about to teach me? Maybe I need to be disciplined, will He correct me? But one thing I am convinced about and that is that I am in the greatest of hands. There is no safer place to be, as God gives his angels charge over me. If only God would open my eyes to see what Joshua and the Israelites saw when God commanded the sun and the moon to stand still at the time He defeated the Amorites, their enemies, destroying every one of them as we too look to destroy every enemy in our lives that keeps us from serving Him - “And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? “The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD heeded the voice of a man, for the LORD fought for Israel. (Joshua 10:13-14)

I wonder has there ever been a day like that for the believer. I would have to accept the fact that God’s Word will never lie. But have we been partakers of such a day? In type, there is no doubt that the Lord Jesus achieved exactly this for all who believe on Him, His resurrection and who now confess Him as Lord.

How so one may ask?

Has not the power of the shackles of sin been removed from the life of the sons of God? It has! Nevertheless “sin” persistently chips away at us on a daily basis as it strives to get us to walk in unbelief. We know this to be true! However when we understand what Christ achieved on Calvary, sin no longer has dominion over us. This seems to be very hard for us to comprehend. We know that we still sin at times although our hearts drive us to avoid sin whenever possible. We resolve to put sin away on a daily basis, or at least this should be what drives us throughout the day. Having been saved from such bondage, we now look to walk with a freedom loving God and keeping His commandments.

What thoughts then should we start the day with? We must believe the Word of God above everything else. Let me try and unpack what Christ achieved on behalf of the believer…

We were born into sin; we had no choice in the matter. A sentence of death was once our lot in life, until God chose to save us. There was no merit in what we could offer Him and yet He so loved us that He sent His only begotten Son to die in our stead. Almost an unbelievable truth! And yet we know it is true as our soul witnesses with the Spirit of God and we are reassured that we now belong to Him. Once we were dead but now we have life! Once we were blind but now we see!

However our day consists of accusing or excusing our actions. We either feel that what we are doing is right in the eyes of God or not. Our conscience helps us to understand sin. But even the unbeliever has a conscience; we have all partaken from the tree of the “knowledge of good and evil”. What then separates us from the unbeliever? We now have Christ Spirit and they do not! How then does this help us? Well in every way!

Let us consider what He achieved on our behalf and it may help us get a handle on the constant nagging issues of the fiery darts from Satan: - “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;” (Ephesians 6:16)

He is the accuser of the brethren! He constantly reminds us of our sin, but the truth of the matter is this, we no longer can be charged with any sin, past present or future sins as Christ die once and for all. We must believe this truth even when we are almost robbed of it by our sin. Faith teaches us to believe what God has accomplished on our behalf. Where it gets tricky is when we resign to habitual sin in our lives, we take on a mindset of lasciviousness and this we must never adopt as a lifestyle for when we do we will be disciplined by our loving Father. Nevertheless what we do will never change the truth of what God has achieved in and through His Son our Saviour. Even if I habitually sin which is not God’s way for the believer, I will never be able to take away what Christ achieved on Calvary.

If I give-in to a particular sin and say to myself, it is not possible to overcome, I then make God a liar, which is a very serious indictment and who would want to go there? I sadly through lack of understanding once lived there. There will always be consequences to our actions; hence my right leg is an inch shorter than my left leg, I am HIV positive and I have failed with two marriages. This thought even now looks to defeat my faith, but my King has overcome and although my life was once full of disobedience, I now have hope to find obedience in and through my reigning King, the Lord JESUS Christ. Praise His name! 

So you see even an apparent hopeless case like me can find hope in and through Him. No matter what life has dealt you all you need do is believe on the finished work of Calvary. We cannot take away what has already been done but we can forget those things that are now behind us and we can now press on with this high from God. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Today is the day of salvation, turn to Him and find life for we cannot die while Jesus lives, Praise His name!

Signing off

Tyrone