Odds are, if you are reading this blog, you can recite John 3:16. In fact, just pause for a moment and remember this great promise from scripture.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Now, we could spend quite some time meditating on this promise, but what I would like to draw your attention to the next verse, verse 17.
“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world…”
So what we see in these two verses is what Jesus came “to do” and what he came “not to do”. He came to-do is to seek and save the lost, and what He came not-to-do is condemn… Now, my question to you is – How often have you felt condemned in your Christian walk? My guess is, if you are anything like me, condemnation has regularly crept into your life. Whether it is when sin entangles you, or you find yourself continually falling short, condemnation can easily grip your heart and leave you feeling like a failure. How contrary to the word of God this is! Let me encourage you for a moment…if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, if you’ve accepted Him as Lord and Savior and have put your trust in Him, then there is now NO CONDEMNATION in your walk with the Lord! This was one of those truths in scripture that was pretty revolutionary for me, and I hope it will be for you too!
Don’t believe me? Here is what Paul has to say about those that are “in Christ Jesus” in Romans 8:1,
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”
It doesn’t get any more direct than that. There is now no condemnation. None. So, if it shouldn’t be condemnation we feel, then what should it be? Well, from my experience, Spirit prompted, genuine conviction. As a child, I recall on a few (not many) occasions doing something that I shouldn’t have, and more often than not, when I knew I was in trouble, I was certainly not going to run and tell my parents what I had done, that would be foolish because I knew my parents would be disappointed and I knew I had let them down. You see, this is where condemnation continually crept in for me. What I found to be true was when I felt condemned, relational restoration both horizontally (with others) and vertically (with God) was impossible, because what condemnation tells you is “I messed up and my father is going to kill me”, but what the Spirit’s conviction tells you is “I messed up and I need to run to my Father”. Paul puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 7:10 – “Godly sorrow produces repentance…”. You see, it is when the Spirit within convicts us, producing Godly sorrow, or conviction, that our natural response shifts from retreating to returning, because when has our heavenly Father ever been reluctant to welcome us back home? Wasn’t this the experience of the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15? Verse 17 says, “when he came to his senses”, that is when he decided to return to his father and the Bible says that while his son was a long way off, his father ran, fell before his son and celebrated his return home.
My desire for my own life, and for yours reading this, is that you would continually live in fellowship with others, and with your heavenly Father. Our adversary will use condemnation to isolate and seclude you, but the Spirit will convict and remind you of the love of the Father. Friend, know the difference, come to your senses, and run back to your heavenly Father today. He is waiting with open arms.
