Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  Matthew 7:1-2

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Luke 6:37

The two verses above come from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  Of course, we call it by that name, he didn’t.  The verses have been misused on many occasions to protest any admonition or rebuke levied against an individual’s sin.  We all know the phrase, “Don’t judge me!”   If “judging,” in the sense that Jesus used it, meant calling another person to repentance, then Paul sinned on numerous occasions in his letters to the churches, as well as Peter and James and other writers of the New Testament.  These writers often pointed out sins in the churches to whom they were writing as they called them to repentance and, on occasion, even called out people by  name.

So, if this is not a prohibition of pointing out the sins of others, what does it mean?  It’s an important question and one that needs to be seriously considered in the area of spiritual freedom and spiritual warfare.  Let’s again settle what it doesn’tmean. In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul commanded, “I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you” (1 Cor. 5:9-13).

Jesus says, “Judge not…”  Paul says “Judge.”  Are these two teachings contradicting one another?  We believe that the Holy Spirit directed Paul’s writings and that Jesus spoke what he heard from the Father, so these cannot be contradictory commands because God does not contradict himself. What, then, do they mean?

Typically, the issue in spiritual matters is the heart and I believe that is the issue that settles the matter on judging.  When Paul commands us to judge those within the church, we are not making personal judgments but are submitting to the judgment of God’s word.  If a man or woman is living a life that is clearly contradictory to scripture and will not repent after leadership has gone to them, shown them what Jesus had to say about their lifestyle, and prayed with them, then some form of discipline is in order.  The key is that the “judgment” is out of concern for their salvation and the spiritual health of the body of Christ.  There is no self-righteous component in which church leaders are feeling morally superior to the person caught in sin.  Love is motivating the discipline in the same way that love motivates a parent to discipline a rebellious child.

The spirit of this “judgment” is revealed in Paul’s letter to the Galatians when he says, “Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each onelooking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” (Gal.6:11-3).  This verse describes the heart of proper judgment.  The Word is the standard rather than our own biases. We approach the individual with gentleness and a sense of our own weakness and vulnerability to sin. We typically judge the behavior rather than the heart or the person, because only God knows all the issues behind the sin.  We still deal with the sin, because unrepented sin puts the person’s eternal destination in jeopardy and eventually can lead others into sin as well. The goal of proper judgment is always redemption motivated by love.

The judgment Jesus speaks of is a personal judgment based on a feeling of superiority or a desire to hurt the other person. We tend to go past the behavior and simply label another person as if we know their thoughts and their heart.  Instead of saying that a young woman is involved in sexual immorality, we simply label her as a slut…verbally or in our own minds. At that point, we have made her “less than” us, although we probably have another variety of sin in our own life that we justify or don’t recognize.  That judgment exalts us and diminishes the other person.  We don’t feel concern, but rather contempt. We don’t love, but reject.  We judge the person’s worth and value, rather than letting God be the judge.

Here is the danger.  When we judge with that heart, we align ourselves with Satan who is the accuser of the brethren. Secondly, Jesus says that “with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged.”  When we judge others with a heart of moral superiority, we open ourselves up to the enemy.  We have not shown mercy or forgiveness.  When we judge another, in this context, we sin and the unrepented sin is an open door to the enemy.  Not only that, but once we have cast another person in a certain light through judgment, we typically dismiss all evidence to the contrary.

The most difficult thing in marriage counseling is to deal with judgment.  Once a spouse has judged their partner as selfish, hateful, manipulative, perverse, etc., it is difficult for them to see their spouse in any other light.  Even when that spouse is changing, the one who has made a judgment will not see the change or credit the change.  Eventually, the “judged” spouse will give up trying to be different because they sense that whatever they do will never be enough. The spouse who has made the judgment will always feel superior to the other and their disdain or disrespect will poison the relationship.  Believe me, Satan will work hard to justify and maintain that judgment in the mind of the spouse who has made it.

This kind of judgment, because it is sin, gives the devil a legal right to afflict us.  That is how our judgment comes back on us.  If we judge someone to be a perverse person, Satan can treat us as a perverse person. If we judge someone to be selfish, the enemy can deal with us as a selfish person. In finding freedom, people not only need to repent of active sin and unforgiveness, but of judgments as well. In the same way that we repent of sin and renounce it, we must also repent of judgments and renounce them before we can dismiss every demon. Again, this is not a denial of sin, but a change of heart toward the sinner.

Once again, identifying behavior as sinful, based on the word of God, is not the same as labeling a person and thinking less of them because of our personal agendas.  The kind of judgment the apostle Paul calls us to honors the word of God and humbly seeks restoration of a person caught in sin. The judgment Jesus warns us against, actually diminishes the chance for restoration because we feel no obligation to try to redeem that person we have labeled and often seek to have others join us in our judgment against him or her.  So, as we examine ourselves to see if we are in alignment with the Father’s will, we may want to scan our own hearts and history to see if judgment is opening a door for the enemy or is keeping us from reconciling a relationship.  If we are ministering freedom, to others, judgment is an area that needs to be explored.

Several good models for understanding the nature of emotional and spiritual wounds and their healing are based on the concept of needs and fears. The idea is that, as children, we have legitimate or perceived needs. When those needs go unmet or are perceived to go unmet, then we develop fears around those unmet needs. To protect ourselves, we develop emotional defense mechanisms that we believe will protect us from being hurt again.

For instance, if my need for security went unmet as a child and I experienced uncertainty and chaos in my family, I might develop a high need for control which makes me feel safe because my welfare is never placed in the hands of another. If I was constantly disappointed as a child, I might develop an outlook of hopelessness or cynicism. If I never expect good things to happen, then I won’t be disappointed when good things don’t happen. If I experienced some form of betrayal as a child, then I might develop a mindset of distrust so that I never let anyone get close enough to hurt me or betray me again. Objectively, we can look at these defense mechanisms and see that, ultimately, those mindsets still won’t keep us from being hurt by others but those who maintain them believe that they will.

On top of that, those defense mechanisms keep us from experiencing love, emotional connection, joy, optimism, adventure, and even faith because we typically extend those defense mechanisms even to our relationship with God. The needs/fears model also suggests that we primarily have our needs met by different positions or roles in the family. We primarily derive our identity, protection, and provision from our father or whoever our father figure is. We derive companionship and heart to heart communication from our siblings or close friends. We get our needs met for comfort, nurture, and teaching from our mothers. According to this model these needs and the family positions we look to for meeting our needs correspond to the Godhead. The father role is Father God. The siblings and friends role reflects Jesus and the mother’s role falls to the Holy Spirit.

If our earthly father failed to meet our needs, then we will probably have difficulty connecting to and trusting our heavenly Father. If we failed to connect with siblings or friends or were betrayed by friends, we may have difficulty connecting with or trusting Jesus. If our mother did not meet the needs that we would primarily derive from her, then we may have difficulty in receiving the love, comfort and leading of the Holy Spirit. I don’t think this is a perfect model because no model is perfect, but I think it offers a lot for us to consider.

Somewhere in the process, the wounded believer must discover the wounds that came from unmet needs, forgive those who did not meet their needs or who wounded them, and discover that the Godhead is not subject to the same failings and weaknesses that our biological families and friends are subject to. If these defense mechanisms are not dealt with, they will eventually be maintained or enforced by demons.  Ultimately, the solution for every problem in life is trust in God. If you think about it, underneath just about every story and miracle in scripture, God is calling out for his people to trust him. Faith is not just a belief that God exists, but that he exists and can also be completely trusted. Think about it. God offers protection, provision, companionship, comfort, healing, teaching, nurture, and heart-to-heart communication – even eternal life. He offers to meet every legitimate need that we have when those who are limited by the flesh fail us.

There are many ministry methodologies to help believers receive inner healing through Jesus. After all, he came to heal the brokenhearted. But we can start that process by beginning to pray for the Spirit to birth trust in us for the Father, Son, and Spirit. That is where the real battle is and where most of us need to give some attention. When we trust God to meet our needs, we no longer have to maintain our walls of protection. When they come down, life gets better, relationships are richer, and the sun shines a little brighter each day. Pray about it.

When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. (Matt.8:1-4)

I know many people who read through the entire Bible every year. That is a great way to grasp the amazing scope of God’s story but when we read huge sections of scripture we often miss the depth of truths that the Holy Spirit can pack into just a few verses when we take time to read and reflect. A few years ago, John Ortberg wrote a book and recorded a DVD series entitled Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People. In the section on the discipline of reading the word he made a very strong argument that real transformation comes not so much from reading huge sections of scripture each day but from reading only a few verses and meditating thoroughly on the truths embedded in those verses throughout the day.

The little section above is a prime example of the many levels of God’s truth that can be mined from just a little sample from God’s storehouse. In the context of Matthew’s story, Jesus has just completed his “Sermon on the Mount.” In that sermon he spoke of many things including humility, caring for the needy, laying up treasures in heaven, and refraining from judging others.

As he descended the mountain, he encountered a leper. Leprosy could include any number of skin disorders bur each one rendered the person “unclean” and contact with any leper was forbidden and would make the person who touched the leper “unclean.” Those with the leprosy we think of were forbidden to enter any city and were usually confined to a hermit’s life or a life with other lepers. Jews believed that leprosy was a judgment by God against the sinner and lepers were to be avoided by a distance of no less than twelve feet and, if the wind were blowing and a person was down wind from the leper, they were to maintain a distance of at least one hundred feet. Lepers who came too close were often driven away by stones. Lepers were considered to be “dead” and were treated as such – first of all because of the possibility of contagion but also because they were seen as gross sinners bearing the judgment of God. They were “cut off” from the people.

Lepers lived with the possibility of being healed but only directly by God for no physician or priest could touch them. Their plight was to “repent” of whatever sin had brought on the “judgment of God” and then to desperately pray to God for healing. If they were healed, they were to find their way to a priest who would verify the healing and then apply cleansing rituals before they could return to the community. It seems that this healing was a theological possibility but rarely, if ever, seen in the worse cases.

In this scene in the gospel of Matthew both the leper and Jesus violate the Law of Moses in the sight of the crowds. In the mind of Christ, the needs of men were always greater than the demands of ritual law. Like healing on the Sabbath, the needs of this desperate man superseded even the Law of Moses. In the Kingdom of God, love and mercy always trump the rules of religion. The man himself risked the panicked response of a crowd and, perhaps, stiff rejection from the Teacher who might have reminded him that he was afflicted because of the depth of his sin and who might has sent him away.

As in many other settings, we are reminded that Jesus never turns away the desperate. Not only that, but the leper came to a man for healing when everyone knew that God was his only alternative. Perhaps, he sensed somehow that he was coming to God for healing. In the first seconds of this brief and hurried encounter he expressed his faith by declaring, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus then expressed the heart of God toward even lepers when he said, “I am willing.” No judgment. No rehearsal of the past. Only grace and love for a desperate man asking for that grace. When Jesus responded with “Be clean,” he was not only announcing the healing of the man’s skin but also the forgiveness of sin and the cleansing of his soul. Once again we are reminded that healing is available to all whose sins have been forgiven. “Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Ps.103:3).

Then the moment that shocked the faithful occurred. The young rabbi Jesus not only spoke to the leper but actually touched him. By every measure of Jewish Law, Jesus had just become unclean and should have been cut off from the people himself. But something else happened that no one in the crowd had ever seen. The leper was spontaneously healed by the touch of another man. Bill Johnson says that the Old Testament reveals the power of sin while the New Testament reveals the power of righteousness. Under the Law, any man touching a leper would become unclean. Under the mantle of God’s grace, the man touching the leper made the leper clean. The cross changed everything. Here is the equation. A helpless and hopeless man risks coming to Jesus to plead for grace on the basis of a little faith. Jesus responds with a huge “Yes” and the man becomes a new creation cleansed of every vestige of his past. In essence, the crowd witnesses the gospel in all of its fullness.

Interestingly, Jesus then instructed the healed leper to tell no one. On several other occasions he said the same thing to those he had just healed. If the miracles of Jesus testified that he was the Messiah, the Son of God, then it would seem he would want them to tell everyone what he had done for them. Why the silence? One interesting thought suggests that he was keeping them from facing the doubts and questions of others that might undermine their faith in the healing they had just received. After a few days of walking in healing, they might be confident that what Jesus had done was not just a fleeting taste of healing or a 24-hour miracle that faded away.

There is wisdom in that for us. Sometimes when individuals have just received healing or deliverance from the Lord they should surround themselves with people of faith until their faith in what God has just done for them is established. Surrounding ourselves with doubters and cynics right after a work of God in our lives is a circumstance Satan uses to steal our faith so that we lose what we have been given. The doubt of others can erode our faith.

After healing the man and telling him not to disclose the source of his healing, Jesus sent him to the priests so that his healing would be confirmed. That confirmation would solidify the faith of man that he had indeed been healed but also opened the door for the man to return to his family and his community. The only thing worse than leprosy was the complete isolation it imposed on the carrier. How many people in our society still feel isolated because something in their past has convinced them that they are unacceptable and unlovable (unclean)?   Forgiveness of their past and the open arms of Christ’s community is also where these will find healing and life again. In many places the church fears contamination by sinners. Instead of sending them off to live in colonies, we isolate ourselves and live in colonies. Remember, under this new covenant, we are not made unclean by our contact with unbelievers but they are healed by the touch of Jesus through his people. May we be open to the “lepers” around us be willing to touch them as Jesus did.

One of my favorite contemporary prophets is Graham Cooke. I have never met him personally but have heard him at conferences and read his books. One of the things I have heard him say that is worth pondering is that, as believers, we tend to be obsessed with our sin while God is obsessed with our righteousness.

His point is that we constantly worry about our past failures and let the enemy beat us up with condemnation and accusation. We often confess the same sin over and over and tell God how sorry we are for what we did years ago when God has completely blotted out any record of that sin in heaven. God is not thinking about our sin because that has been taken care of by the blood of Christ. He is thinking about establishing us in the righteousness that is ours in Christ.

I believe God’s great challenge with most of his children is to get us to understand who we are in Christ. We tend to live up to the view we have of ourselves. If we define ourselves as wretched, struggling sinners who are barely saved by the blood of Christ then we will continue to be just that. Our self-image will not allow us to paint very far outside the lines of our self-definition. Some of us feel like condemnation is the way to maintain our humility and, thus, be pleasing to God. But if that were the case, why would God tell us all these amazing things about ourselves in scripture.

Biblical humility is not self-rejection and abasement. It is the mindset that rejoices in who we are in Christ but always remembers that who we are is a gift from God and not something we have achieved by our own efforts. We do partner with God in many things, but our identity and our standing in heaven is still a gift of grace. If we spent the same amount of time and energy thanking God for who we are in Christ that we use to remind ourselves of our failings, we would be much further ahead. The proverb says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov.23:7). God says that in Christ we are sons and daughters of God, a chosen people, friends rather than servants, priests of the Most High God, saints, holy ones, the righteousness of God, the household of God, those seated with Christ in heavenly places, the temple of the Holy Spirit, ambassadors of Christ, the loved, the accepted, the forgiven, the anointed of God, and so forth.

If we thought we had earned that position and that standing with the Father, we might certainly become proud and arrogant. If, however, we remember that all of that is a gift and an expression of God’s unconditional love for us, then it can only produce thanksgiving. To ignore our standing in some misguided effort to remain humble is to ignore or even reject the gifts of God and to leave much of what Jesus purchased for us on the table.

It is certainly a biblical matter to acknowledge and confess any sin that does arise in our life, but we should confess it quickly and leave it at the foot of the cross rather than carrying it with us. It should never define us. It should never become our focus and certainly not our obsession. Jesus should be our obsession and who he has made us by his blood and his grace should be the only thing that defines our life.

If you are in the habit of rehearsing your past failures over and over and continuing to bring them up before the Lord, let me encourage you to trade that habit in for a better one – rehearsing who you are in Christ and bringing that up before the Lord with an abundance of thanksgiving. That has much greater transformative power than living in the past and is a powerful acknowledgment of what Jesus has done for you. Blessings in Him.

This morning I remembered a story my wife Susan had shared with me about a tribe in Africa that takes a unique approach to tribal discipline. When a tribe member breaks one of the tribal laws or social conventions, the assumption is that the individual is essentially good but broken. Instead of punishing the behaviors, they place the offending individual in the middle of the village and for two days, the rest of the tribe surrounds them and speaks positive things and good names over them.

The story didn’t report on the tribe’s assumptions about the benefits of the ritual but I’d like to speculate on a few possibilities. If they assume an evil spirit has corrupted the person, then perhaps they sense they can fight evil by speaking good over the person and in that way drive out the evil influence. They must believe their words have power. Perhaps, they believe the person has forgotten his or her essential goodness and so two days of declarations reminds them of who they are or “reboots” them to their default settings. Perhaps, all the positive things spoken over the offender are designed to call them to a higher standard of living. I have no idea if there has been any Christian influence in the tribe but there is something very biblical and very powerful about their approach.

Now, I am speaking about our tribe of believers only. Ours is the tribe marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit living in us. Mankind, in general, is not essentially good because mankind has a fallen nature. However, once an individual has been born again, has become a new creation, and has the Spirit of God within…he or she must be considered essentially good. God says that we are priests and kings, holy and sanctified, sons and daughters in the household of God, and partakers of the divine nature.

Within each of us is the goodness and greatness of God. This goodness and greatness is the reality that God has placed within us. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, but that fruit is a potential that needs to be called out, nurtured, and activated. James says something interesting in regard to this truth. He says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ja. 4:29). What is spoken to us and over us has a powerful affect on our identity or our self-image.   We usually live up to what we believe about ourselves and what is spoken to us year after year shapes those beliefs.

There is also a prophetic aspect to the things we speak over another person. In the book of Judges, Gideon is an Israelite hiding his harvest from Midianite raiders. As far as we know, he had no military training. Yet, the angel of the Lord greets him by saying, “The Lord is with you, Mighty Warrior” (Judges 6:12). Gideon was not yet a mighty warrior but the purposes of God for his life had been established from his conception and the angel was prophetically activating those purposes. The Apostle Paul instructs the church at Corinth that prophetic words spoken over believers should always strengthen, encourage, and comfort (1 Cor.14: 3). Those words begin to call out God’s purposes in us and activate the goodness and abilities that God has placed in us through his Spirit.

There are numerous other passages in the N.T. that have the same flavor. Nowhere do I see passages commanding the opposite. The gospel of the flesh and of hell would certainly contain commands and passages such as: Be ye critical and rejecting of one another. Be hateful and demeaning in all that you do. Be quick to point out failure and remind one another of those failures as often as you come together. Be careful to shame one another as if that will produce righteousness. Speak the truth one to another with great disdain and condescension. We could go on…but you get the drift.

However, the Holy Spirit spends a great deal of time telling us who we are in Christ. He goes to great lengths to describe our new identity as children of the Most High God. The writers of the New Testament speak that identity over the church throughout their letters. They usually begin their letters by acknowledging who they are in Christ. For instance: “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7). “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy…(1 Cor.1:2). “To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph.1:1). There is purpose and intentionality in doing that. Most of these churches had flaws that needed to be corrected but the writers began by affirming their goodness in Christ.

Our identity, our holiness, our strength, our glory, and our victories have all been spoken by God and written down. His Spirit wants to put those words in our mouths. As we also declare the word of God given to us, his word once again goes forth. As it goes forth, it accomplishes its purpose. God calls us to be a tribe that surrounds those among us who are broken and declare good things over them. We are to call out who they are in Christ and the destiny he has ordained for them so that God’s word will accomplish its purpose in their lives.

As we speak honor to one another, encourage one another, and speak only words that build up, we help to establish the believer’s self-image – the internal view we hold of ourselves. We always live up to or down to that view. But more than that, we activate supernatural forces that draw those things out of us and make them realities. The words we speak that are God’s words are not only true but also prophetic in nature. As we, like Ezekiel, prophesy over the wasteland of someone’s brokenness, life will come forth. We should speak that same word of God over ourselves, as well, until we see God’s goodness and greatness fully formed in us.

James instructs us to be fountains of fresh water that constantly speak blessings rather than springs of salt water that kill living things by our negative words and evaluations. God calls us to speak life rather than death. That should begin with our spouses and children and then spread to all those we encounter. This doesn’t mean we cannot correct or point out fault but we do so with the conviction that those we are speaking to are valued by God and also have a positive destiny established by their creator. Our words can help them discover that destiny and fulfill God’s purposes in their lives. As we enter the New Year, may we all commit to speak only words that build up and impart life even when others are not as gracious.

Most of us are acquainted with the “Parable of the Unmerciful Servant” from Matthew 18. It is set in the context of principles about the kingdom of heaven. At the beginning of the chapter, his disciples asked Jesus who is greatest in the kingdom. Jesus answered that those who walk in a childlike humility are great in the kingdom. He then talked about those who would go after a lamb that had wandered from the flock and the excitement of heaven when that lost sheep is restored. Next he taught about forgiving a brother who sins against you. Peter, in his impulsive way, immediately asked how many times we are expected to forgive the knuckleheads in our lives (Peter always said what the rest of us were thinking but would never say out loud). Jesus responded with the lengthy parable I mentioned above.

In the parable, a king had loaned differing amounts to his servants and decided that it was time to call in the loans. He called in a certain servant who had borrowed huge amounts of money and apparently had lost it all. When he could not repay the loan, the king ordered him and his family to be cast into a debtor’s prison until friends and extended family might bail them out. The servant fell to his knees and begged, “ Be patient with me, and I will pay back everything!” The problem was that the king knew he would never be able to repay the enormous debt he owed. However, unexpectedly the king took pity on him, forgave the entire debt, and let him go.

The twist in the story comes when the servant who has just received an incredible gift of mercy, goes out immediately to collect a small debt from another servant. When the other servant could not pay, the “unmerciful servant” had him put in jail until his family could repay the small loan. When the king heard about what had happened, he revoked his forgiveness of the huge debt owed by the first servant and did have him cast into debtor’s prison.

The question of the day is why the man who had just received so much mercy was not willing to dispense a little on his own. Some simply believe he was selfish and hard- hearted with a bit of an entitlement attitude to boot. But I think the key is found in his plea for the king to give him more time to pay the debt. He did not believe that his debt was fully and freely forgiven. He left the presence of the king with the thought that he had only been given more time to come up with the money… like a loan shark giving his mark a few more weeks to pay while the interest accumulates.

Let me pose another question that I believe is related to this parable. Why do so many Christians find it so hard to forgive themselves for past mistakes when the Master has declared our debt fully and freely forgiven? Through the years, I have met with countless believers who do not walk in joy or confidence because they have not forgiven themselves for past mistakes. Their inability to forgive themselves creates an atmosphere of self-condemnation that makes it almost impossible to pray with faith because they constantly feel unworthy of receiving anything from the Lord.

At the core of that inability to forgive one’s self, I believe, is a misunderstanding of the fullness of the forgiveness that has come to them. If you ask these strugglers if they know that God has forgiven them, they will certainly say yes. But, it’s as if that person adds their own bit of fine print to the covenant that says, “I will forgive you once I am convinced that you loath yourself for these past sins and are filled with enough shame and regret long enough for what you have done.” There seems to still be a “works” mentality that says I must somehow eventually pay the debt by punishing myself, even if God will not. Like the unmerciful servant, some may believe that God has just given them more time to work off their sin.

At the core of this is a subtle unbelief in the unconditional love of God and the absolute sufficiency of Christ’s blood to eradicate the record of any sin in our past, present, or future. To say that God has forgiven me but that I can’t, seems to say that my standards for righteousness are higher than God’s. However, I know it’s more than that. I believe it is the same shame that Adam and Eve felt seconds after their sin in the Garden. We seem to be more able to get over our guilt – the idea that we have done something wrong, than to jettison our shame – the idea that there is something wrong with us.

The solution is in faith, but not so much the faith that I am forgiven as much as the faith that, in Christ, I am a new creation – the old is gone and new has come. The faith that I am born again and am not the same person I used to be is essential to forgiving ourselves. We keep thinking it is about something we have done but, in truth, it is about who we believe we are – defective and unacceptable. Only by taking on our new identity in Christ can we reckon the old man dead and walk in the joy of knowing that we have been made new. Only when we believe by faith that our spiritual and physical DNA has actually been changed can we have faith for the transforming power of God.

God is not asking for more. It has all been done by Jesus. He is not asking us to continue to punish ourselves for who we are or what we have done. Christ has taken on all of our punishment. What God wants is for us to believe him when he says that the past has been dealt with at every level and for us to begin to joyfully walk in the new life we have been given as a new creation in Christ. If you have been finding it hard to forgive yourself, spend a lot of time thinking about who you are in Christ now, not who you used to be then. In Christ, you are worth it and you are amazing.

For most of the Jews, coning into the presence of Gold was a fearful thing that held the expectation of death. Undoubtedly, that expectation was established at Sinai when Jehovah descended on the mountain with smoke, fire, and thunder and declared that no one should touch the mountain lest they die. There were other echoes of that moment such as the moment that Nadab and Abihu offered strange and drunken fire in the tabernacle and fire from the Lord came out and consumed them. There was also the moment when Uzzah tried to steady the Ark of the Covenant when David was attempting to move it to Jerusalem and he was killed for his “irreverent act.” Even a man of God such as Isaiah cried out “Woe is me!” when he received a vision of God on his throne in Isaiah 6.

Many believers today still tend to keep their distance from God because of past sins or shameful moments in their lives that they feel disqualify them from coming joyfully into his presence. They still fear a lightening bolt from heaven or the consuming fire of God’s disapproval so they stay away, pray little, and sit in the back pew as anonymous worshippers who want to keep a low profile in the sanctuary as if God might not see them.

The Jews were fearful because they related to God on the basis of law-keeping and the curse of the law was severe judgment for misdeeds. Many Christians still think that God accepts them or rejects them on the basis of their ability to live a righteous life. And since we all fail daily to measure up to God’s righteousness, those of us who have not fully discovered God’s grace still live with fear and a sense that we cannot and should not come close. What we must grasp is how radically Jesus has changed the spiritual atmosphere for every believer.

The writer of Hebrews spoke of this change when he said, “You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast, to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them because they could not bear what was commanded…the sight was so terrifying that Moses said, ‘I am trembling with fear.’ But you have come to Mt. Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God: You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb.12:18-24).

The theme here is open access to heaven for every believer. He is not speaking of access after the funeral but now. The phrase is, “you have come.” In Christ, the presence of God is not a fearful experience but a glorious experience. The atmosphere is one of joy not terror. It is not a mountain that repels but a city that invites. It is not a place where you are a stranger but a city in which your name is written. An interesting detail is that the word “firstborn” in the phrase “church of the firstborn” is plural. It could be translated as “church of the firstborn ones”. That plural suggests that every believer has the status of a firstborn son with God, which in the Jewish culture would mean that you are absolutely the apple of your Father’s eye.

This has all been accomplished by the blood of Christ rather than by your own righteousness. The blood of Abel cried out for justice and vengeance but the blood of Christ cries out for grace. Under the Old Covenant, most men ran away from the presence of God. In Christ, we are invited to run to his presence. The writer of Hebrews made this clear when he said, “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb.4:16). The presence that was once terrifying is now comforting, loving, peaceful, joyful, kind, and empowering.

Jesus has made all the difference because his sacrifice satisfied all the demands of holiness and justice and opened the the doors of heaven so that love and mercy could be poured out on earth. Knowing how much we are welcomed into the Father’s presence and how he sees each one of us in Christ is the key to every blessing in the Kingdom. As we begin to grasp his love for us, we cannot help but draw closer, pray with greater faith and expectation, and ignore the accusations and slander of the enemy. As we do that, our capacity to love others and extend grace to them multiplies. Once we grasp what Jesus had done for us, we are compelled to worship in our hearts and as we do we get to join thousand upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly.

I love the picture the writer of Hebrews gave us in contrast to the fearful atmosphere of Sinai. I hope you will think about it today and, in doing so, draw closer to the Lord anticipating a very warm welcome.

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Heb.11:6). This is a statement from Hebrews 11 where all the great men and women of faith are listed for our consideration. The phrase “by faith” comes up over and over again in that list and throughout the scriptures. Jesus also declared faith to be a central component in many of the miracles he performed. He often said something like, “Your faith has healed you” or “May it be done to you according to your faith.” He declared that if we had faith the size of a mustard seed we could command a mountain to be thrown into the sea and it would be done. At times he was amazed by the faith of a few and, at other times, amazed at the lack of faith of others. Paul assures us that we are saved by grace through faith.

For anyone who has studied the New Testament, faith is clearly seen as a central issue in the life of every person who follows Jesus. Faith is a central issue in our lives if we are going to see God move powerfully in response to our prayers or work through us as we minister to others. Most discussions about faith orbit around our perception of God and his ability to do great things that intervene in the natural order of the universe. However, in my experience, believing that God can heal the sick and raise the dead or that he can move mountains and give great victories in the face of overwhelming odds is often the easy part of faith.

What I have discovered through the years is that my challenge is not to believe that God will move in those ways for his children, but to believe that God will move in those ways for me. Perhaps, you struggle with the same doubts at times.

I find that for many of us, believing that God truly loves us personally and is eager to answer our prayers is the stumbling block for our faith. For many, it is much easier to believe God’s promises for others than for ourselves. We know ourselves too well. We live with a daily awareness of our secret sins, out fears, our defectiveness, and our weaknesses. We know our dark thoughts and shame-filled memories. We reject ourselves so we expect God to reject us as well.

It’s part of our fallen nature to expect punishment from God rather than grace and love. One of Satan’s great strategies is to persuade us that God is a perfectionistic father who requires the same perfection from his children if he is going to love and bless them. We expect him to be angry when we don’t deliver that perfection.

Like Adam and Eve, our first response to our failures is typically to duck into the brush, attempt to cover up our shame, and when God shows up to blame everyone in the surrounding territory for our shortcomings. Why did Adam and Eve hide and blame rather than running to their loving Father and confessing their sin immediately? Perhaps, it was because Satan had subtly convinced them that God wasn’t such a loving father after all. We know what he was whispering to them before they took fruit from the tree and ate, but we don’t know what he whispered the moment after they took that fateful bite.

I’m confident it was a litany of fear-filled claims that God was going to fly into an uncontrollable rage and become a terrifying abuser – that he was going to kill them that day because “ in the day you eat of that tree you will die!” I’m sure he whispered that God now hated and despised them and would never forgive them for what they had done. He probably laughed at them and shamed them in every conceivable way so that they would hate themselves and expect God to feel the same.

Satan whispers to us in our failures as well. He whispers that God only loves the “super-Christians;” he only responds to the prayers of those in the 95^th percentile; or the last sin was the last straw and God is through with us until we can work hard enough to earn his love and mercy again – but we are such losers that we’ll never be able to do that anyway.

Satan persuades us that God is a father whose intimate involvement in our lives, whose love, whose laughter, whose delight, whose abundant forgiveness, and whose approval will never be there for us. And so we pray and believe with reservation – not about his goodness or his ability – but about our “worthiness” for his love and attention.

Faith accepts that our worthiness was secured on the cross apart from our performance. It believes God’s promises for us in spite of our abundant weaknesses and failures. Jesus became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor.5:21). By God’s grace there is no condemnation for us because we are no longer under law (Rom.8:1). You have been adopted into the royal family by a father whose love is unconditional. He knew all your faults before he ever called you to be his son or daughter.

Most of us believe in our minds that God loves us. The problem is to believe in our hearts that he loves us and has written our name on every promise. So how do I finally come to believe that every promise is for me and not just for those around me?

First of all, we may ask the Holy Spirit to give us a revelation of that truth in our heart. He is the teacher who leads us into all truth. God speaks of writing his laws or his truth on our hearts. Revelation comes to our hearts, not to our minds, so a consistent prayer for that revelation would be an essential place to start.

Secondly, we need to begin to say what God says about his love and promises for us and refuse to add any disclaimers that disqualify us for those promises. Stop the “buts.” As soon as we say, “ I know what the Bible says, but…” we have introduced unbelief into our hearts and have diluted our faith. If the Bible says it, stand on that without qualifying the scripture or stating a disclaimer about your “worthiness” to receive the promise. Jesus has made you worthy…period. Find a set of declarations about your identity in Christ and read them out loud every day ending them with a thank you to God that he has made you all of those things.

Thirdly, we need to find a promise that becomes our promise – one that resonates with our spirit and one that we will not let go of. Ask God to show you a promise that will anchor all his other promises for you. Memorize it, confess it, and use it against the enemy. When the devil shows up with his truckload of accusations and condemnation, be quick to call him a liar and command him to leave and take his lies with him. Declare your promise over the accusations. That is how you resist Satan and send him fleeing.

Getting the truth that every promise of God is for you and not just everyone else in your church is critical to living a blessed and victorious life. It is a process more than an event and you have a part in it. So get started today and ask the Lord to show you his heart toward you. When we truly understand his heart for each of us, we will be transformed.

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.      I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:11-13

When Paul wrote his letter to the church at Philippi, he was writing from a Roman prison. The church at Philippi had sent him some supplies and Paul was thanking them for their concern and response to his needs. He was quick to say that he appreciated their gifts but that his needs had been met in Christ because he had learned to be content in every situation of life. In this letter, we learn that contentment, in the sense that Paul uses it, is an essential key to happiness.

The word translated “content” is a very strong word in ancient Greek philosophical circles. It was the state that all Greek philosophers aspired to as a state of being totally unaffected by the world around them and emotionally self-sufficient. You see this mindset of total, unquestioning acceptance in eastern religions. It is the idea of being self-contained so that nothing upsets a man’s inner world of peace. Eastern mystics often strive to reach that state of inner peace through total, unquestioning acceptance of their circumstances and a disregard for personal needs or comfort. It is ultimate expression of fatalism that says whatever happens, happens – so just accept it.

Paul did not mean “contentment” in the same sense because Christians are never to be indifferent to the needs of the world around them or to be self-contained and self-sufficient. We do not live a life of fatalistic acceptance because we are more than conquerors in Christ. However, Paul had discovered a Christ-sufficiency that guarded his heart and generated an internal contentment even in prison.

Paul experienced that internal contentment as peace and goes on in this same letter to say, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.        And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil.4:6-7). How many of us are in search of peace in our hearts? How many of us would be willing to give anything to alleviate our anxiousness, our angst, and our internal restlessness that never lets us enjoy the moment or find peace in the midst of the storm?

I believe Paul’s secret to contentment and peace was his strong conviction that God was in the midst of every storm with him. Paul did not believe that God caused his hardships because he knew who the enemy was. However, he did believe that God was with him and that God would insert his purposes into every situation. For Paul, every obvious victory and every seeming defeat offered an opportunity to discover more about the Father and more about Jesus. In the midst of crisis, Paul saw an opportunity to discover who God was going to be for him in that crisis. It was a chance to discover a new facet of the Father’s love and power that he had not known before.

He believed that both seasons of plenty and seasons of lack were opportunities for thanksgiving. In a season of plenty, thanksgiving was prompted by the harvest that had just occurred. In a season of lack, thanksgiving was prompted by the harvest that was on the way. Paul had learned to see God’s hand and feel his presence and his working in every situation.

In a circumstance where we might feel that God had abandoned us to injustice and hardship, Paul still saw the hand of God. Early in his letter he wrote, “Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly” (Phil.1:12-14).

Even in a prison cell, Paul saw the hand of God at work. God was working something in Paul as well as through Paul in his present circumstance. Because of that, Paul found a spiritual capacity to be content or at peace with life at any given moment because even the hard times had an eternal purpose for him. His thanksgiving was based on what he believed God was doing and would do in each moment. He said that prayer and thanksgiving in any crisis would guard our hearts and produce a peace that transcends or goes beyond our understanding.

The key is to know that God will work something good out of every circumstance in which we find ourselves. He is not absent, he is not indifferent, he is not powerless. He is working and a heart of thanksgiving opens up our spiritual eyes to see, first of all, who he is and then what he is doing.

We live in a world and a culture that works hard to produce a state of non-contentment. Every add you see in a magazine or on television tries to convince you that you need at least one more thing for happiness or fulfillment – a new car, a cruise, a new look, or the perfect house just beyond your budget. The devil also whispers that what you have is not enough – you deserve more or you deserve better – a more attentive or better looking spouse, more money, more power, more influence, or more fame. With each of those temptations he promises more significance, more happiness, and more contentment.

However, outside of God’s purposes, nothing will bring those things in any lasting way. Remember Adam and Eve. Satan convinced them that there was just one more thing they needed for happiness and that one bite from the tree would meet their need. To Satan’s delight, instead of peace and contentment, that next bite produced fear and shame.

Paul had definitely learned to look for more – but more of God rather than more of what the world offered. No circumstance could keep him from God so in every circumstance he could say, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Phil.4:4). Because of his relationship with the Father, Paul always anticipated good because God is good. He always anticipated victory, because God is victory. He always anticipated having enough because God is the God who provides. He always anticipated the ability to endure because he knew that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. Contentment is great gain. Learn to find the hand of God in every circumstance and that contentment can be yours.

I know a highly successful man who is highly critical of others and himself. His rationale for pointing out even minute flaws in others and himself is that by making people aware of their shortcomings, they can improve. He sees his critical spirit as a public service. He said one time, “What my father did for me, I do for others.” By the way, he’s divorced now.

But there is a little of that mindset in most of us, in the sense that we often think we will do better if we demean ourselves, criticize ourselves, or even call ourselves names. We feel that humbling ourselves before God by emphasizing our weaknesses or failings pleases him. Sometimes we even feel guilty about enjoying our blessings because we feel that we don’t deserve them or because others don’t have what we have.   Sometimes, we often do a kind of penance by recalling past failures and moments of shame as a way of beating ourselves up. Our logic is that if we feel bad enough about what we did, we will never do it again. We often employ that strategy when we want others to “never do something again” as well. We try to shame ourselves into being a better person. This may have some semblance of logic to it, but it simply doesn’t work and it is just the opposite of God’s directives for “better living.” God does not call us to nail ourselves to the cross because Jesus did that for us. We don’t find our lives on the cross but because of the cross.

Think about it. Jesus told us that the world will know that we are his disciples by our love for one another. Paul defines love by actions and attitudes in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient. Love is kind. It keeps no record of wrongs. It always protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres. Notice that loves is not critical, blaming, always bringing up the past, harsh, demeaning, or humiliating. The way that God directs us to treat others is, essentially, the way we should treat ourselves. A major part of God’s program for transformation is not condemnation and rejection but acceptance and a call to a new identity. If he reminds us of the past, it is simply to remind us of who we once were but are not now, and how much his love has forgiven and forgotten.

In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul said, “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers…will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord” (1 Cor.6:9-11). Notice the past tense – that is what some of you were. Paul is calling them to their identity in Christ. You may have been that person before the Holy Spirit took up residence in you, but that is not who you are now! Don’t live like the person you used to be, live like the person God has made you to be. The Bible says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (KJV). In other words, we live up to or down to the image we have of ourselves. God wants to increase our image so that we may live up to the call he has placed on our lives.

I like what Bill Johnson says about this in his book, When Heaven Invades Earth. “The boldness we need is not self-confidence but the confidence that the Father has in the work of his Son in us. It is no longer a question of heaven or hell. It is only a question of how much of hell’s thinking will I allow into this heavenly mind of mine. Doesn’t it honor Him more when his children no longer see themselves only as sinners saved by grace, but now as heirs of God? Isn’t it a greater form of humility to believe Him when He says we are precious in His sight, when we don’t feel very precious? Doesn’t it honor Him more when we think of ourselves as free from sin because he said we are? At some point we must rise up to the high call of God and stop saying things about ourselves that are no longer true. If we are going to fully come into what God has for us…we’ll have to come to grips with the issue of being more than sinners saved by grace.     (P.168).

It is the nature of Satan to condemn and accuse. It is not the nature of God…especially toward his own children. In our internal conversations, we need to say what God says about us. We need to leave our past buried (we died to sin) and speak in the present and the future. We are redeemed, forgiven, accepted, children of God, royal priests on the earth, saints (all of us), God’s beloved, His called out, destined for greatness, ambassadors of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit, sons and daughters of the King, holy, the righteousness of God, appointed and anointed, and more.

When we see ourselves as God sees us, we will live up to that image. It is true for those around us as well. If God says that is who we are, then that is who we are – since it is impossible for God to lie. Let me encourage you today, to increase your transformation by increasing your identity in Christ. In word and thought, say what God says about you and call any other identity a lie. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a revelation of your identity in Christ. Speak the same things over your children, your spouse and your friends in the Lord as well. The truth we call out in Christ becomes a reality, because God’s word, whether from His lips or ours, has creative power and always fulfills its purpose. Be blessed today because you are the redeemed of God, perfect and righteous in His sight.