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No Condemnation
Did you know that for those in Christ, there is no condemnation?
One of the most difficult aspects of being a Christian is the feeling of reservation we get when we pray because we don't feel worthy... we have our failures in our minds, and we think we have to clean up or grovel before God will listen to us.
But when we understand the full weight of what happened on the Cross, we are finally free to stop worrying about how we appear before God. We have been hidden in Christ and we appear completely righteous before God as a gift! We can come boldly before the throne of Grace because we are in Christ.
That is the essence of the Gospel, and of God's grace. In fact, if we try to please God in our flesh, and if we believe we have succeeded enough to pray confidently because of our own efforts, we've been deceived. The Bible likens those efforts to "filthy rags". There IS no other way to stand before the Father except in the humility of the Gift we have received in Jesus.
This makes such beautiful sense, because if we could do ANYTHING to earn our salvation, heaven would be filled with intolerably prideful people.
The freedom that Paul describes is so profound that he qualifies it, (but without compromising God's grace), by saying that although all things are lawful, not everything is profitable.
So then, you are the righteousness of God in Christ. Not only have you been cleared of sin, past, present and future, but the knowledge of this fact is precisely what gives you the strength to be able to leave more and more of the imperfections in your life behind as you press on towards the higher goal, the upward call of Christ.
Most Christians, and even many churches, are mired in sin consciousness... thinking that the bulk of the Christian life is striving against sin! Living the Christian life should be moving OUT of both sin consciousness AND sin and into the strength, authority and power of Jesus. We are His hands and feet in this world, but we can't be very effective if we are trapped in a constant battle with our own sin.
Lets move on. We are not just forgiven, we are loved, healed, equipped, empowered, commissioned, and authorized to be the agents of God's will carried out on earth as it is in heaven. |
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