RWM Blog – August 2016

RWM Blog – August 2016

No Condemnation? Never turn back!

By Wynn Cameron Thompson

Romans 8 – Amplified BibleWhy do we feel condemnation when we fall, i.e. I can never get it right, how can God love me, I feel condemned!”

There are many Scriptures that assure us that when we sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus, and when we repent and confess our sins to Him, and turn away from them, He forgives us.

It is the Holy Spirit’s way of doing what He is supposed to do, convince and convict us of the sin so we will turn to the Father in repentance and ask His forgiveness.

If we really believe what He says, then we will accept His forgiveness. Feelings of condemnation should go away if we have faith. If one continues on, then, in their “self-condemnation” it signals unbelief in God that He is Who He says He is, or is able to do what He says He can do, or will do what He says He will do. It could also be ‘past authority voices’ who said or acted in such a way as to make us believe we are ‘not as good as’ or ‘not as valuable’ as possibly others. If we have been ‘devalued’ in any way and we have held on to that belief, we are believing a lie about ourselves – for God said He knows His own thoughts of us, ones of wholeness, welfare, peace, success, and to take care of you – and not thoughts of evil, suffering, calamity or to abandon you BUT to give you a future and a hope in your final outcome!

UNBELIEF is possibly more serious than the sin itself. The Word says that ‘He Who begins a good work in us will finish it’. It also says He is ‘able to keep us from falling away’. It says that ‘when we fall we will not be utterly cast down, but with His strong right arm He will lift us up’. We have to believe ALL of the Scriptures are there for us to receive them by FAITH. REPENTANCE is key. The Apostles all ran away, and Peter denied Him, yet Jesus said to the Father that He had lost none of the ones He had given to Him. But they REPENTED, and ACCEPTED His forgiveness! Peter must have had the most awful feelings of CONDEMNATION, yet his faith in Jesus’ forgiveness was such that he went on to be a great man of God the
rest of his life!

Self-condemnation is surely enhanced by Satan’s influence for he seeks only to kill and destroy. ‘But greater is He Who is in us than he who is in the world’! I think in each of us there is a sense of unworthiness to receive anything from the Lord. Satan tells us we are unworthy and so has others from time to time since we were very young. We tell ourselves we are not worthy. But it’s not OUR ‘worthiness’ in any case, that causes us to receive salvation and forgiveness….it is HIS, Jesus Christ’s, righteousness we are clothed with, NOT our’s!

Which now brings me back to Romans 8:1, which I used in Part 1. As you know, chapters and verses were not in the originals, but were made my man later on. Needless to say, verse 1 can not stand alone.

First there’s the word, “therefore”, indicating prior statements on this subject. Romans 7 flows into Romans 8, and if we just use the one verse it could take it out of context. Paul had just been expounding on the Law of Sin and Death, and the Law of the Spirit in Chapter 7, and it seems to me he continued for a huge part of Chapter 8. Chapter 6 is a part of this as well.

#8These Scriptures refer mainly to receiving salvation and then being free from condemnation ‘if we walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit’. IF we fall in our Christian walk, there is no condemnation (forever) BUT we must avail ourselves of the provision of confessing, repenting and being forgiven by our Father because of what Jesus did on the cross.

If we try to make 8:1 stand on its own, then we would have to say, “Oh, my, how can this be?” And then we have to deal with our feelings of condemnation, which seems to contradict the verse. I just think that these teachings in Romans are so deep, one can’t just take one verse and understand what is being taught .

Again I suggest that what ever it takes, get the help/support and teaching you need to walk away and never turn back!