No Condemnation

Christian Working Woman Transcript from last Friday:

Living in a Performance Driven World

Romans 8:1 says "There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION to those who are in Christ Jesus." If you're a Christian who constantly feels guilt-ridden and condemned, that condemnation is not coming from God because He said we are no longer condemned. Period.

If I am dead, as Paul says in Galatians 2:20, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me, then who has to live my life? Me? No, I'm no longer required to perform. What I must do is allow Christ within me to have complete control so that He can live this new life through me.

I'm no longer surprised when I discover I am not performing up to what I know I should as a Christian. I'm certainly not happy about it, but I'm not shocked to discover that when I start to live this life in my own power, I'm going to sin. I have less and less faith in myself and my ability to perform. But I have more and more faith in Jesus and His power in me, and I'm learning to grow in this grace.

How do you feel God sees you right now? I could answer that question by saying: "God sees me as a very impatient person who speaks before she thinks." Or I could say: "God sees me as a woman who wasted ten years doing her own thing, and lived a life of disobedience for those ten years."

Is that how God sees me? No, never, but many of you are doing that today, whether you realize it or not. You see yourself as all your failures and all your inadequacies, and you think that's how God sees you, too. WRONG! If you're truly born from above, God sees you in Christ!

If I'm "in Christ" God sees me as righteous, because I've been given the righteousness of Jesus. I'm in line to inherit all of God's riches; I am co-heir with Jesus. I am seated in heavenly places. That's how God sees me.

God doesn't love me when I'm good and punish me when I'm bad. God will never love me more than He does right now. My performance will not change His love. His love for me is total. I don't get more of it by performing better. That's the way we humans are, but not God.

If you are bound up trying to perform to God's standards, you're living in legalism and that's a tough way to live. Jesus died and rose again to get you and me out of a performance-driven mode. Galatians 5:1 says "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."