“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” – Romans 8:1

No condemnation for followers of Jesus. None! When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, ALL our sins are truly and completely forgiven. In God’s eyes, the past is truly the past, it’s OVER. There is and will be no condemnation from God for our past, no matter how terrible or shameful! We are free of all that!!!

When we’re in Christ, God sees Christ in us. We’re made new and God sees the new in us. The world may still label us, condemn us, and judge us for our past but God doesn’t and we shouldn’t! If you’re struggling today with guilt or shame, thinking about yourself in terms of your failures and weaknesses, or calling yourself the labels of the world, then stop. If you’ve embraced Christ and follow Him, you don’t need to think about yourself that way. Turn those things over to God and think about yourself as He does: as His beloved child and beautiful new creation.

When we’re in Christ, God sees His beloved son or daughter, whom He’s adopted through faith (jump ahead to Romans 8:14-17 for more about that)! If you’re in Christ, that’s who you REALLY are.

“For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” – Romans 7:22-23

This is a familiar struggle for us! We want to do the right thing. We want to please God. We want to be good people. Yet we struggle with temptation and too often it wins! On our own, the outcome of this war is inevitable: no matter how hard we try and how disciplined we are, we inevitably fail to consistently defeat the temptations.

What are we to do? How can we be good people when we succumb to what we so often succumb to? That’s where the Good News comes in! When we put our faith in Christ, God not only forgives our sins, but He lives within us! Christ unites Himself with us and gives us the power to defeat the temptations of our bodies, minds, and hearts!

As Christians we won’t automatically defeat the sins we struggle with, but we have the power to do so! In Christ we are new creations with new natures and the power of God at our disposal to crucify those sins that continue to tempt us. However, we must choose to wage that battle, to fight back against the sins that attract us. We must wage that battle in the power of the Holy Spirit, not in our own strength and self-discipline (we know how that ends). We must draw near to God daily, deploy prayer, and walk in the Holy Spirit, letting Him defeat the temptations that continue to beckon.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:23

In this life we’re offered a choice: do we want the payment we deserve or do we want a gift we don’t deserve?

In the criminal justice system, it doesn’t really matter how many good deeds someone does most of the time. If someone commits a crime, he or she will receive the punishment due for that crime regardless of their goodness in every other aspect of life.

Sin works the same way. No matter how many good things we do, because we each also sin at times (in our thoughts, words, actions, or inactions), we inevitably separate ourselves from God. He is perfect, He is holy, and He is just, therefore He cannot permit sin to go unpunished.

What we earn for ourselves is condemnation, wrath, and eternal separation from our perfect and holy God for our rebellion against His good design for life. That’s what we deserve and it’s awful to even contemplate.

The free gift God offers us instead is glorious if we’ll just accept it! If we commit our lives in faith to Jesus Christ, God gives us total forgiveness, He restores our relationship with Him, we are united with Christ at all times, and we enjoy eternal life with Him forever. Like any gift, we must accept it and unwrap it for it to have any value in our lives. Have you accepted God’s gift???

“Teach me your way, Lord,
and I will live by your truth.
Give me an undivided mind to fear your name.”
– Psalm 86:11

The Bible has nothing good to say about a divided or “double” mind. It doesn’t favor the sort of mental compartmentation that too many Christians practice. Christians are meant to have a seamless mind shaped by Christ and the Bible, but too often we have a Christian section of our mind that applies on Sunday and addresses explicitly theological issues and a secular portion of our mind that applies most of the rest of the time.

As followers of Jesus, our worldview – the way we understand and evaluate EVERYTHING – needs to be rooted in Scripture. Unfortunately, most Christians have a worldview subconsciously rooted in secular thinking, based on their education, political leanings, and preferred media outlets. If you aren’t intentional in your worldview, then you will surely have an unbiblical worldview, no matter how much you love Jesus!

In a season filled with brutally serious challenges, those who claim the name of Christ must be careful to evaluate every issue and even every statement heard or uttered through the lens of Scripture and the teachings of Christ. We must be more loyal to our Savior than to any earthly source, philosophy, party, or system.

Although there are excellent trainings available to jumpstart a biblical worldview, nothing replaces the steady daily consumption of God’s Word. As you spend time in the Bible each day, when you encounter a passage that challenges your assumptions, perspectives, or politics don’t argue with it and don’t ignore it! Pull on that thread and evaluate your thinking and assumptions in light of Scripture. By so doing you will gradually transition from a divided mind to the undivided mind of Christ.

“For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: ‘Seek me and live;‘“
– Amos 5:4

God’s grace is breathtaking! Despite a scathing indictment of the ongoing injustice, moral confusion, and idolatry of His people, the Lord still offers forgiveness and restoration. This is the glorious goodness, grace, and mercy of our patient and loving God!

No matter how far we fall short of God’s standard and no matter how far we try to run from His presence, He’s always there, ready to forgive us and embrace us as His own beloved children!

Because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, which paid the penalty for our sins through His atoning death and resurrection to life, forgiveness is freely available to all who truly believe. No matter what we’ve done, no matter our guilt, our shame, our humiliation, our cruelty, our selfishness, and our sin, God doesn’t hide Himself from us.

All we must do is repent – be truly sorry for what we’ve done and turn away from it, asking God to forgive us in Christ – and He will forgive us. Every time. All the time. Seek Him and live!