Condemnation - NOT!

We have spiders.  And ants.

Funny thing is, both are creatures God likes and tells us to consider.  (Proverbs 6:6-8; 30:28)  Why? Because they do what needs doing, ignoring the distractions around them, and showing no regard for opinions. The ant, always industrious; the spider, immune to rank.  Both quietly working at what God called them to do.  Neither easily tired nor intimidated.

What does this mean to me?

The ant is busy all the time.  The spider works industriously, but when the job is done, she stops scurrying and patiently waits.  Does the ant tell the spider when to spin?  Does the spider tell the ant when to wait?

It is not for me to tell another when to go or when to stay -- when to be busy or when to be still.  Nor is it for another to tell me... although we each think we know what is best for the other.

It is for me rather to be sure that I go when God says, "Go." That I stay when God says, "Stay."  I neither can nor should control what another does or thinks.

Romans 8:1-4

8 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

But I must be sure to walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh.  The flesh is all about the law, condemning all who do not obey the letter of the law.  The contrast between flesh and Spirit is clearly stated in 2 Cor. 3:6

6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

When I walk after the Spirit, I come alive inside.  I am able to take hold on needs around me and accomplish much.

When I allow condemnation into my life, I am crushed into my flesh.  I accomplish little.  More condemnation descends.  It is a vicious cycle.  Soon, I am completely nonfunctional.

Then must I go to my Saviour and repent, "It was never my righteousness, only yours.  Please forgive me for thinking it was my works that saved me or judged me.  It is not.  It is only by your works that I am saved or judged.  And by your works, I am judged righteous, and therefore saved."

Once I grasp this, I understand:  None could condemn Jesus. Therefore none can condemn me.  That includes myself.

Armed now with faith in Christ and acceptance of His sacrifice, I lay aside my condemnation and stand to my feet.  Leaving my past behind, I take up the cross of Christ as my shield and I step forward into a new day, one task at a time.

What I accomplish or don't is irrelevant.  What matters is that I put Jesus first.  He'll cover the rest.

Amazingly, things fall into place, I can function again, and I have peace.

I forget to be broken.  I forget to be worthless.  I forget to be frustrated.  Some things fall into place. Others can be let go.  What gets done is what my Jesus pleases; and if He is pleased, who am I to complain?  Who is another to say, "It is not enough"?

Lord Jesus, help me to always put you first, follow your direction, give you glory when I succeed, and accept your forgiveness when I fail.

My works cannot save me.

Yours can.

Amen.

Why Resurrection Day Matters

Standing in church today, singing about Jesus' death and resurrection, I found a thought creeping across the surface of my mind... a thought that took my breath away:

We didn't get it.

We, the people with whom I was raised.  The people who loved and worshiped the Lord three times a week and taught me to seek the Lord when I needed answers, and put the Word of God at the center of my life...

We missed the entire message of the Jesus story.

Most of the adults came from traditions wherein Jesus was found in a manger or on the cross, and was otherwise unimportant.  Because that was all their churches concentrated on, they were excited to find a people who studied the entire Bible, and they came to belittle both Jesus' birth and death as "religious". The children were taught both events as periphery stories.  We were taught to "take Jesus off the cross and out of the manger."  It was the 33 and a half years in between that was important.

Growing up under this teaching, I came to understand that Jesus' whole life was just proof that we could overcome, in ourselves.  That we, in our own strength, could reach perfection... "if not us, who?  if not now, when?"  All we needed was the Holy Ghost.  The Holy Ghost was the final ingredient needed to make living above sin possible.  It was the one thing the Old Testament saints lacked and what they had to be resurrected to receive...

40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

Hebrews 11:40

The "better thing" being, of course, the gift of the Holy Ghost.

This message COMPLETELY missed the point of Jesus' life and death... that's why the cross did not matter to my people.  Jesus came to earth only to prove to us that we could live a sinless life -- shame on you if you did not!  Once Jesus gave us the Holy Ghost, there were no more excuses.  Quit complaining and just do it... after all, Jesus did, and we now had everything He had.  The whole point of His life on earth was to be an example of how we could live a perfect life.

Standing there, singing, I suddenly realized that this was not what Jesus was about at all!

What I saw in the Gospel message hit me like a blow to the solar plexus:

Jesus did not come to show His contempt for us by doing what we would not do... He came to show His love for us by giving up all His strength and glory to do what we could not do.

His death was not for the shedding of the Holy Ghost.  His death was for the remission of sins.

23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Romans 3:23-26

Had Jesus chosen, at the last minute, not to die, we could not have been spared.  Mankind would have been doomed.

His death mattered.

It is His death that saves us.  The Holy Ghost is to comfort and guide us, but the Holy Ghost CANNOT save us.  Only the blood of Jesus can.

The Gospel story is not about us getting a tool that we can use to overcome sin in ourselves.  The Gospel story is about Jesus doing it ALL for us.  The Gospel life, then, is about us learning to accept that truth and to hide in it, drawing ever closer to Christ and to His cross and letting Him do the rest.

4 Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

Psalm 37:4

He doesn't give you what your heart desires (the way I always interpreted this scripture), rather, He gives you the desires your heart is supposed to have.

This is why Jesus gave us the picture of communion - a physical picture of his broken body and shed blood - to keep us coming back again and again to His sacrifice, His righteousness.  To remember that it is His righteousness that covers us, and as we come ever closer to that cross, it is He that justifies us and makes the changes in our heart and our will that draw us ever closer to what He designed us to be.

"The only thing we bring to our salvation is our sin." (Gregg Harris)

And our only job... is to come.