We now go on to a very important verse—a pivotal verse in victorious living: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).
Perhaps the most important thing that can happen to a human being is to have the sense of condemnation lifted from the inner life. As long as a sense of condemnation rests upon the soul, the shadow of that condemnation darkens the whole of life. To tell a man to buck up and be happy while this condemnation is there is like telling him to be joyous while a cancer is eating at his vitals. The lifting of that condemnation is the greatest contribution of the Christian faith.
This lifting of the condemnation is not a legal lifting—you stand robed n the imputed righteousness of Jesus. That would be verbal, not vital. The condemnation as condemnation must go. A half-protruding cannon ball is still embedded in the stone wall of a church in Bergen, Norway, a relic of the Napoleonic War of 1812. Many have the ball of condemnation still stuck in their souls, reminding of guilt and sin. A Japanese pastor told me that before he was converted he used to go out at daybreak and stand on a castle wall on a hill, the highest point he could find, and call to God before anyone else got His ear, and cry for pardon and reconciliation. That lone figure calling for pardon and reconciliation is man. A young Dutchman came to India seeking inner peace. He sat for fifteen days and nights on the top of a mountain, fasting, looking at the peaks opposite with eternal snows upon them. He vaguely hoped that in his meditation the white purity of those virgin snows would enter into him and release him from condemnation. But nature worship left him as cold as those snows. He had a New Testament with him and when he opened it after the fast he saw, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
THE PRAYER
O Jesus, I open this Book and I see from its pages Thy face. Thy face shows forgiveness in Thine eyes. I read it there, and I rejoice with freedom and release. Now my happy heart sings its way down the waiting years. I am grateful. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY
Since He accepts me, I can and do accept myself. My self-rejection is gone— gone in His acceptance of me.
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3 Responses
Since Jesus lives within me, cleanses me with His blood, transforms me with His glorious presence, and empowers me with His righteousness, I am no longer trapped in the up and down cycle of self-approval and condemnation.
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”. It doesn’t say there will become no condemnation, it says “now”.
I may use the word condemned to describe how I feel, but especially in this area my feelings are not reality. It may take years to overcome some of the feelings of condemnation, guilt, and shame but this ongoing sanctification is rooted in a reality that I am NOT condemned by the only person with the right to condemn me.
In a nutshell, I have to avoid thinking I’m condemned for feeling condemned. The condemnation is gone, bam, kaput. The feelings linger and require an ongoing sanctification.
Oh, the power of Agape love. Woven within its fabric is mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
Where is the condemnation in that?
Staying 💪’n Christ