God has forgiven you, he loves you, he does not condemn you. He wants you to accept His forgiveness and reinstate you as His child and friend so that you can be more than a conqueror. This takes humility, humility to give up completely on your own ability to attain. You must simply accept that he has finished the work He set out to do on the cross. Humility comes from the Latin root Humus, which means grounding. Humility is not feeling bad about yourself it is knowing where you come from. If you agree with God that you are from Him, there is never any reason to feel poorly about yourself. If you think you are a sinner unable to be forgiven then you have become an enemy in your mind against God. The extreme of this is to blasphemy the spirit, which is the only 'unforgivable sin' (Matthew 12:31). It really means to come to a place where there is no possibility of redemption for that individual because they have totally bought into the lie that they are condemned and cannot be forgiven.
Where are you claiming to have your grounding? In Adam or Christ? There is no half-way, you cannot be both. You are not a saint and a sinner, you side with one or the other and only one is true. "He who is not with Me is against me (Matthew 12:30)." The reality for everyone is that they have been forgiven, to reject this and live in the old nature is to live a lie existence. Did you know that God is not even disappointed in you? He can't be, because He never put any expectation on your ability to perform in the first place! He knew from the beginning that we could only succeed from a place of dependence on Him and not a dependence on ourselves.
Guilt, shame, and condemnation have no place in the Kingdom! In fact those feelings reveal that we still have confidence in ourselves! How silly that is, since that is why we needed a savior in the first place! To struggle with sin means to struggle with 'works righteousness' ; which, ultimately, a struggle against grace itself. "For we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh (Philippians 3:3)." When we feel guilty it is because we failed, and for whatever reason we feel like we should have been able to do it! That is an anti-Gospel mentality, in fact even an Anti-Christ mentality. Oh the lies of Satan that he has mixed among the Holy Brethren. "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out Abba! Father (Romans 8:15)!" Or have you forgotten that Christ is always for you, he is never against you (Romans 8:31). "For it is for freedom that Christ has set you free (Galatians 5:1)."
That means that even repentance can be a joyful, even fun thing! Because it is acknowledging that the very thing we did isn't us! Repentance literally means to go back to the top, to accept the mind set of Christ within a situation. Repentance is only a painful thing outside of a relationship with Christ. In faith, repentance is a glorious occasion as we revel in the grace of Jesus!
Sadly much of the modern churches theology has stemmed from unbelief. Many of God's children struggle under the spirit of condemnation, fear, and uselessness because of demon inspired theology. They believe they will always struggle with sin, that they are in continual need of salvation. Sadly their 'humility',or grounding, is in the false self rather than true reality. This has made the church weak, and has a form of Godliness but denies its power (2 Tim. 3:5). Much of the church is still kneeling at the foot of the cross rather than coming out of the tomb resurrected! Paul's teachings were centered around faith, God's strength not our weakness, Jesus' forgiveness not the fall of Adam, us being Saints not sinners. We ultimately need a faith revival, where we stand upon the word of God and say it is true regardless of our experiences. We need to stop fighting salvation and accept it, stop belittling ourselves and take up the armor of God to step out as the brave and holy warriors He has created us to be.
Through faith, a renewed mind, we know we have become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), and have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3). Remember that faith comes by hearing, hearing what (Romans 10:17)? The good news. The good news is the finished work of the Christ. Hear it, know it, and ask the Holy Spirit to give you the faith to believe it! Christ has given us freedom from the penalty of sin and from sin itself. In fact we don't even have a sinful nature anymore, ha! That is the new identity, living in, with, and through Jesus! Be free, be joyful, and rest in His presence that doesn't condemn, isn't disappointed in you, and loves continuously!
"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (Ephesians 2:4-10)."
When do you want to come preach this at Crossroads?
ReplyDelete