Episode #359 Freedom from the Guilt That Won’t Let Go – Real Peace, Secure Faith

Friend, do you talk to yourself like you're on trial? Today I wanna encourage you and empower you to stop condemning yourself. If there are ways that you can put burdens on yourself, if there are areas where you just talk harshly to yourself, you condemn yourself where God does not condemn you and there's freedom that God wants to bring you today.

And as I sat with the topic for today's episode, there were a few different contrasts that came up for me. One is recognizing the difference between guilt and shame. Where guilt acknowledges THAT was bad, shame tries to say YOU are bad. It attacks your identity, not just simply names an action. And in a similar way, there's a difference between conviction and condemnation. Conviction is when God prompts our hearts and says, “Hey, this is not who you are. This is not how I made you to live. You can choose a different course here. Come, come back to me. Come back to who you are in me.” But condemnation labels you. It makes you feel like you can't draw near to God. You are bad. You don't belong near God. You have been condemned into darkness. You can't go into light.

But I wanna read for us Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Now, not later after you improve. NOW there is no condemnation because you're in Jesus.

Friend, you are not on probation with God. He's not waiting and grading you for failure. The verdict has already come back and because of the blood of Jesus, there is now no condemnation for you. Sometimes we can live like there still is, right? Like maybe the “no condemnation” part is when we get our act together more. When we don't sin as much. When we're more consistent in our quiet time. When we hear God more quickly or respond more obediently or eagerly.

Or maybe we see it as there won't be condemnation in the future when I get to heaven, like I'm allowed in. But we can feel like we're on this probationary timeline with God. Where he's still not quite sure about us, where we need to prove ourselves, where we need to work harder, where we need to do more for him on earth.

Or maybe we just need to pay penance before he's gonna want to hear our next prayer 'cause of how we behaved yesterday.

There is now no condemnation for you. You can come freely to receive his gift of grace. It's his loving kindness that draws us to repentance. And one of the indicators for me when I have struggled with this is how I feel about that word repentance. It used to make me feel shame. It used to make me feel bad or nervous or unwelcomed like, “Ugh. I need to repent again.”

But it's a gift that's already been paid for.

You are now no longer condemned, so you can come freely when your heart is convicted, when God is saying, “Hey, this isn't who you are. You're my kid. Come live in the way that I've created you for. Come experience more life with me. Stop messing around with that sin. You can think again and choose differently and come boldly to the Christ's throne of grace to receive help in your time of need.”

And so condemnation doesn't get a mess with you any longer. And I invite you to sit with this today and to explore this area with God to see if there might be ways that the enemy has still been trying to peg you with condemnation, even though, in Christ, he has no authority to do so.

And so here's a question that I invite you to take to God, to listen to what else he might want to share with you:

God, what does ‘no condemnation’ mean about how I get to approach you differently today?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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