Whenever we review the events of our lives apart from the blood of Jesus, we subject ourselves to the influence of the spirit of deception. In reality, my sinful past no longer exists. The Lamb of God purchased it with a payment in blood, forever removing my sins from the records of Heaven…The devil keeps records of our past. Yet those records are powerless without our agreement. He is the accuser of the brethren, but Jesus is our defender. We make an agreement with the accuser whenever we look at our past apart from the blood. When we agree with the devil, we empower him. When he is empowered, he devours. On the other hand, agreeing with God empowers us…This empowerment is not independent of God; it is empowerment because of God. (Bill Johnson, The Supernatural Ways of Royalty, p.51, DestinyImage Publishers)

When you can’t say something better than the way someone else has expressed it, a quote is on order. I really like Bill Johnson’s quote above and it expresses a truth that the majority of believers, including myself, need to get more deeply in their hearts. It is true, that Paul tells us to examine ourselves and to even judge ourselves in 1 Corinthians 11, but he is not talking about an examination or rehearsal of our pasts, but only the present. As soon as our present sins are confessed with repentance, they also are part of our pasts.

Peter echoed this truth in a sermon to the Jews recorded in Acts 3. There he counseled them, “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord^” (Acts 3:19). The idea of blotting out something is to erase it so that no record of it remains. In the first century, some documents or records were written on parchment or vellum. These materials were made of animal skin because they lasted much longer than the forms of paper that were used. The ink used at that time had no acid that ate into the skin. It simply dried on the surface and set on top of the parchment lightly bonded to it. A wet rag would erase it from the parchment like dry erase markers from a white board. That was “blotting out.” When it was gone, there was no evidence of what had been written before. Scripture says that your sins have been treated that way in heaven. That is why, when speaking of the New Covenant, God can say, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Heb.8:12). John also tells us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

The truth is that the blood of Jesus washes away our sins. The blood doesn’t file away our sins or bury our sins for later retrieval. As we confess with a heart of godly sorrow, our sins are washed away and blotted out. When you stand before Jesus, two things will be read from the books…your name that is written in the Book of Life and your service to God which will be translated into rewards. No sin records will be brought out to shame you or condemn you because no records exist. Scripture declares, “Those who trust in the Lord will never be put to shame.”

The enemy loves to role out his records, but they have no legal standing in Heaven. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom.8:1). As much as he wants to shout out our failures, he will be silenced in the courts of Jesus. We need to remember what Jesus taught us to pray – “on earth as it is in heaven.” If there are no reminders of our past failures in heaven, we should not allow them on earth either. For a believer, those condemning thoughts are illegal.

If you continue to dwell on your past and if you constantly feel shame and condemnation for things done months or years ago, you are coming into agreement with the enemy. God says that your past is gone. The enemy says that it is very present. Every time you lift your past up again to God, asking for forgiveness, you are expressing unbelief in his Word that says the past is forgiven and forgotten – as if the blood of Christ is not sufficient for your failures. But it is!

Satan’s goal for your feelings of shame, guilt, and condemnation is for you to feel disqualified to serve God in significant ways or disqualified to have your prayers answered. In that setting, discouragement reigns rather than triumph. But Jesus has qualified you and your past does not affect that at all.

Susan and I paid off our house a few years ago. When we did, we got a legal paper from the bank saying, “Paid in full.” The bank has no claim on our house whatsoever. If some guy from the bank showed up at our house telling us that we needed to pay more on the loan, we simply have to wave our “paid in full” receipt in front of him and send him on his way. That is how we should treat Satan when he comes calling and telling us that our debt is not paid. It is paid. Paid in full. And we need to say so. As far as God is concerned, that is the gospel. Don’t let anyone tell you different! Be blessed today and know that your past mistakes and failures are fully and totally covered. They are covered by the eternal blood of Christ. You will be resurrected, but your past never will. Rest in that.

Okay…so I grew up in the late 60’s and 70’s when Jesus freaks and the Jesus Movement were a part of the underground, hippy culture. There was a song called Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum – a kind of a one hit wonder. It sounds very new age with contemporary ears but the theology behind it was sound if you got a little explanation. One verse declared, “I’m not a sinner, no I’ve never sinned. I’ve got a friend in Jesus.”

To some that sounded arrogant or downright blasphemous. After all, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom.3:23). But another verse confirms the theology. “Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb.10:14). On the one hand, we certainly have all sinned and continue to do so less that we did, but on the other hand, God does not count those sins against us. If you inspected the ledgers of heaven, you would find no record of sin – past, present, or future. As far as God is concerned, you’re not a sinner, no you’ve never sinned cause you have a friend in Jesus. We need to get that truth in our hearts.

So many of us focus on our past, our sins, and our failures while God is focusing on our righteousness in Christ. It’s not that he doesn’t recognize our sins, but he does not define us by those sins. He defines us by the righteousness that is ours in Jesus. The passage above from Hebrews declares that by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. By the sacrifice of Jesus, you have been given a positional or legal status of sinlessness – forever – which extends both into the past and the future. God always relates to us on the basis of our position while he works on our condition. He is in the process of making us holy – matching our condition to our position – but he is not focused on our sin but, rather, who we are in His Son.

We would do well to so the same. Too many believers get focused on their sins, failures and spiritual shortcomings. Whatever we focus on becomes our identity. If we see ourselves and define ourselves as sinners in Christ, we will constantly live up to that expectation. If we see ourselves as righteous and holy in Christ that will become our identity and we will begin to live up to that set of expectations.

Many of us try to motivate ourselves to be more like Christ with criticism and name-calling. If we did that to our children we would be labeled as bad parents, maybe even verbally abusive. We recognize the power of self-image (identity) in our children and work to encourage and affirm them at every opportunity but often fail to recognize that principle in ourselves. Faith declares that what God says is true is true, even if it does not appear to be that way. By faith, we need to say what God says is true about us, so that God’s truth is deposited more deeply in our hearts and minds. It’s not arrogance; it is good theology that appreciates what the blood of Christ has done for us.

So…the next time the devil stirs up accusation and condemnation and tries to convince you of what a spiritual failure you are, just pull out a little Norman Greenbaum and sing in his face, “I’m not a sinner, no I’ve never sinned. I’ve got a friend in Jesus!” It’s good theology. Be blessed and sinless in Him today.

The problem with grace is that it seems unjust at one level and too good to be true at another. It is hard to receive at a personal level because we know we don’t deserve it and it is hard to extend to those who have wronged us or wronged society because we definitely know they don’t deserve it. Yet it is the cornerstone of our faith. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph.2:8-9).

If you are like me, the following parable challenges you. “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.    He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you.    Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ (Matt.20:1-16).

We tend to see ourselves as the men who worked all day in the heat of a middle-eastern sun. The idea that some slackers hung around the marketplace all day and worked for an hour in the cool of the evening and got paid the same as us seems remarkably unjust. And yet this parable is about grace. The owner was a generous man and sometimes he was so generous that it offends us.

When God extends his grace to a person we think well of, we celebrate. But how do we feel about grace for a monster? Then we grumble about the wages. In the 1990’s, one of the icons of “monsterdom” was Jeffrey Dahmer. As a mass murderer, he had abused, killed, and cannibalized seventeen young men. He was caught and imprisoned and eventually killed by an inmate. Just as you read that, something in your heart probably agreed that justice had been served. Toward the end of his days in prison, however, Dahmer declared that he had come to faith in Jesus. The prison chaplain confirmed that in his estimation, Dahmer’s repentance was genuine and that he had become one of the most faithful worshipers in the church behind bars.

The thought that God would forgive this man who had done such terrible things, simply because he said he was sorry, was unacceptable to most – even to many Christians. In fact, the idea that, in eternity, a Jeffery Dahmer could walk the streets of heaven in good standing was almost scandalous. What kind of a God would forgive that? The same God who is willing to forgive me, no matter what, when I trust in his grace. If we wanted God to “draw the line on grace” so that the urge for justice within me was satisfied, where would that line be drawn and how would I ever know if I had crossed that line?

Grace can’t be measured or it becomes law. It’s there for everyone or for no one. If Dahmer can’t be saved by grace then neither can I. I can almost live with the abstract nature of that because I never met Dahmer and knew none of his victims. But what about those who have betrayed and victimized us? Can we extend the grace of God to them that has come to us? The extension of that grace is called forgiveness. Grace is not about whether anyone deserves it or not, it is simply about the infinite love of God. Ultimately, I can do nothing to cause God to love me more nor can I do anything to make him love me less. Jesus on the cross is the full expression of that truth.

The good news is that his love comes that easily to me and if I meet the conditions of a little faith and true repentance, then forgiveness and salvation come to me as well – to me and the murders, rapists, ex-spouses, abusive fathers, and bullies in this world. And yet when I say that, I can still feel the offense of grace somewhere deep inside. That pushback tells me that grace is not natural because my natural man isn’t comfortable with it. It is supernatural and can only be received when the Spirit of God opens my heart to it.

The capacity to receive grace and to give grace comes by the revelation of God’s love in my own heart. When I have a revelation of that love then I can celebrate grace, forgive those who have wronged me, and even rejoice in the salvation of the Jeffrey Dahmers of the world. Think about the freedom of living in that grace. Think of all the fear, bitterness, resentment, and offense in your heart just melting away like snow on a warm day. That is God’s will for your life. If I struggle, I can pray for a greater revelation of that love and grace in my heart. It is the very thing the Father wants us to have. It is the ointment that heals all hearts. Grace and peace to you today in Jesus.

So…what do we do when the faithful fail? What do we do when we fail, when we slip back into a sin we thought we had left far behind, or when weakness overcomes our faith? There are many who would say that the cleansing of deep regret and overwhelming feelings of guilt are the right response to realign our hearts with the Father. Many of us believe that a sense of shame and guilt and the emotional pain of our failure will keep us from sliding into sin again. But there is an interesting passage in Nehemiah that raises a question about that course.

In the book of Nehemiah we find the prophet in exile. Jerusalem had been sacked and burned and the best and brightest of the Jews deported. When word reached Nehemiah that the city he loved was still devastated with the walls lying in heaps of rubble and the gates burned he cried out to God. God moved King Artaxerxes to allow Nehemiah to return to Jerusalem and restore the city. After a remarkable restoration project, the wall and city gates were rebuilt. Nehemiah and the people were certain that all the things that had happened to Israel were because of their sins, so when the wall was completed Nehemiah called for a solemn assembly to re-consecrate the people and the city. Ezra the priest stood and read the Book of the Law to all the people.

The text says, “They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.   Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is sacred to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh.8:8-10).

The natural response of the people to their sin and the righteous standards of their God was to weep as they felt the guilt and shame of their sins and the sins of their fathers. And yet, God instructed them not to weep but to celebrate. This is a clear picture of the difference between condemnation and conviction.

Condemnation is a tool of the enemy that he uses against us when we fail. Condemnation produces shame and shame pushes us away from the Father at the very moment that we need to be drawing close. Remember, Adam and Eve felt shame in the garden at the moment of their sin and the realization of their nakedness. That shame caused them to hide from the Father and to blame others for what they had chosen to do. Satan loves to come and condemn. In response to the enemy’s strategy, Paul declares that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom.8:1).

Shame is the very thing that drives many of us to sin in an effort to cover or medicate our sense of unworthiness. Our unbearable feelings of insignificance, defectiveness, and inadequacy drive many to substance abuse, sexual addictions, comfort eating, and so forth. Condemnation simply increases our shame and our need to medicate so that we get caught in a destructive cycle. Condemnation convinces us that even God can’t love and that being the case … we are on our own. When we are on our own we are dangerous to ourselves and others.

Even in the face of their sins, Israel was commanded to celebrate rather than weep. The celebration was not a statement that their sins did not matter, but rather a recognition that God’s love and grace were greater than their sin. It was a celebration of God’s love and mercy that draws us back to him rather than driving us away.

In the Nehemiah passage, God calls on us to focus on his grace rather than on our failings. Bill Johnson speaks to this when he says, “The real problem is not in what we lack, but how we respond to what God has said. Focusing on our problems more than God’s answers should be a dead giveaway that we’re really dealing with condemnation not the Holy Spirit’s conviction. Focus on God’s answers – not your problems. When the Holy Spirit shows us where we are falling short. The bigger reality is not the areas where we’re not yet walking in our destiny, but the destiny itself…The conviction of the Holy Spirit is actually a call to turn our focus away from our sin and our limitations. He’s saying, ‘You’re made for more than this. Lift your head and set your sights higher’” (Bill Johnson, Strengthen Yourself in the Lord, p.136-137; Destiny Image).

There is a time for godly sorrow, but the sorrow should quickly turn from our self- focus on our weakness to God’s strength, from our unfaithfulness to his faithfulness, from our failures to his victory, and from our discouragement to his grace. The joy of the Lord is our strength. We will have greater victories over sin if we focus on Him rather than us. The constant goodness of God and his willingness to forgive any sin as soon as our heart turns to him is a reason to celebrate. It does no good for us to wallow in our self-loathing or despise ourselves as if beating ourselves emotionally will pay for our sins or convince God of our sorrow. Our sins are already paid for and the proof of repentance is not found in self-loathing but in loving God.

When we fail in our walk with the Lord, we should own it, confess it quickly, and then get on to celebrating God’s goodness and love. There is joy in that and in that joy we find strength for the next stage of our journey wherever we are. Blessings today as you celebrate the goodness and grace of your Savior.

Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them.         As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the “sinners” and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:13-17)

I’m always amazed at the impact Jesus had on ordinary men and women and especially “sinners”. In one sense, of course, we are all in that category but scripture often speaks of sinners and those who lived a sinful lifestyle and made no effort to cover it up or repent of it. Typically these people were social outcasts who were not welcome in the homes or synagogues of moral, religious people.

Levi (Matthew) was considered a sinner because he collaborated with the Romans and got rich by collecting taxes above and beyond what the Romans required of Jewish citizens. To the Jews, he seemed like a traitor who got rich off the sufferings and poverty of his own people. Tax collectors were hated. My guess is that Levi wasn’t welcome at the synagogue. His friends were those who shared the same reputation as he did. They essentially had no one else to socialize with. The Romans still saw them as inferior and backward because they were Jews and the Jews saw them as traitorous.

And yet, Jesus walked by and extended an invitation for Levi to be one of his disciples and Levi got up immediately and left his career behind. Not only that, but in celebration of his new found relationship with Rabbi Jesus, he threw a huge party at his house and invited followers of Jesus as well as all of his tax collector friends. The religious leaders of Israel were offended and questioned the righteousness of Jesus because he mingled with the unrighteous. We are not so different.

Look at the people who followed Jesus. Former tax collectors, at least one political terrorist, uneducated men, former demoniacs, perhaps a prostitute, and one swindler who would ultimately betray Jesus. These were not the names you would want to list as your board of directors for a new worldwide evangelistic association. If you think about it, Paul addressed the church in Corinth with a surprising reference to some of their past lifestyles. “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers 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 Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor.6:9-11).

The first century church seemed to be made up of a large number of formerly unsavory characters…the kind we Christians tend to avoid today and mark off as highly unlikely candidates for the gospel. In fact, very few of us would even have contact with the list of lifestyles Paul mentioned. It’s a rare church that would have former drug dealers, strippers, prostitutes, alcoholics, embezzlers, and gang members in their pews because most of us would never present the gospel to someone like that.

But Jesus seemed to move among that social strata with ease…more ease than with the Pharisees. Somehow, Jesus spent time with and developed relationships with these men and women without compromising his standards and without alienating them. In fact, they were much more responsive to the gospel that the moral people of his day.

Of course, reaching those blocks of broken people is not without its challenges. We would wonder if our children were safe around them. We would most likely hear words in our church buildings that might cause us to blush. The scent of alcohol on someone’s breath Sunday mornings would not be uncommon and the church might get to know a few more bail bondsmen that we would like. We would also have to struggle to know how to love homosexuals without approving of their lifestyle and would struggle to even know how to relate at all to transsexuals.

But those are exactly the people Jesus went after. Those were the people who found a home in the church. Those were also the lives that were drastically changed…many of whom died willingly in the face of Roman persecution without recanting their faith. Can you imagine what testimony nights were like in those churches?

I’m thankful that in my church I do know former drug addicts and former drug dealers. I know former prostitutes and former homosexuals. I know former pornography addicts and former criminals. These are the most passionate people I know in the Kingdom of God. These are the most fearless and spiritually gifted people I know and the most evangelistic. They would all tell you that a person who has been forgiven much, loves much (See Luke 7:47). Jesus knew that and he wants us to know it now. I’m going to pray for more opportunities to reach the social strata that Jesus seemed to have such a heart for. Perhaps, you might pray that as well.

Blessings in Him…the one who came slumming for each of us.

Shame is a powerful weapon of the enemy. I was part of a group a few evenings ago in which four or five believers were prayed for and received deliverance. In nearly every case, a spirit of shame was one of the tormentors in the life of those being ministered to.   Guilt is the sense or the feeling that I have done something wrong. Shame is the sense or feeling that there is something wrong with me that ultimately makes me unlovable and unacceptable.

Many of us carry a sense of shame from our childhood where we too often heard phrases such as: Shame on you!   What is the matter with you? What’s wrong with you? You little piece of trash! Etc. If we hear those kinds of words often enough we begin to feel as if something is broken and defective that makes us unacceptable. We also feel that the defectiveness is unalterable. Our self-image plummets and we are unable to carry a sense of goodness, worth, or acceptability around with us. The devil loves to move into those wounds and reinforce them with internal whispers of rejection, condemnation, and accusation.

When we carry shame or a sense of unworthiness we tend to believe that if anyone really knew us they wouldn’t love us. Authenticity and transparency are too risky for that individual who is always anticipating the next experience of rejection. On a spiritual level, those of us who carry shame doubt that even God can love us. We doubt his blessings and we doubt that he pays much attention to our prayers. As a result, we live with little expectation of good things coming our way and pray more with vague hope than with faith.

One of the women we ministered to this week asked for prayer because she didn’t feel welcome in the presence of God and believed that her prayers were not being heard. She had a checkered past and felt in her heart that her past failures disqualified her for the blessings and the privileges of the kingdom. The shame she carried from past mistakes was being reinforced daily by demons that had been assigned to her. After we cast our several demons (one being the spirit of shame, another rejection, and so forth) she said there was an instant shift in her heart. Before she felt that all she could do was stand outside the throne room of God and peek around the corner from time to time. After shame was driven out, she felt herself standing directly before the throne and being fully accepted by the Father.

She, of course, already knew what the Bible says about her forgiveness and the Father’s total acceptance of her but shame kept her from receiving that truth in her heart. If we don’t believe in our hearts that God loves us, delights in us, and quickly forgives our past failures we will never live up to the destiny God has ordained for us in Christ. What we believe about God’s response to our failings is very important.

Two apostles denied directly Christ on the night of his arrest. Judas denied him by betraying his location to the High Priest and Peter denied him verbally three times to witnesses who asked if he had been with Jesus. Both were overcome with shame. Both wept bitterly. One believed God would never release him from his failure and so he hung himself. The other clung to the little band of believers and the Lord in spite of his shame about what he had done. He returned to the Lord with some reason to hope that he would be forgiven because he had seen the love of the Father expressed in Jesus for the past three years.

God is not interested in shaming his children. Of course, he wants us to take responsibility for our failures, confess them, and then align our hearts with his, but then he wants to forgive our failures and forget them. Before his conversion, the apostle Paul made a career if blaspheming Jesus and arresting his followers, He put some to death. In his letter to the Roman church, Paul says confidently “those who trust in Jesus will never be put to shame” (Rom.10:11). I believe Paul leaned on that truth from time to time when Satan would remind him of his past. Paul also tells us that love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Cor13). Since God is love, he keeps no record of the failings in our lives that produced our shame and sent Jesus to heal broken hearts that have been shattered by shame. When God looks at us, he doesn’t see past failings; he sees future potential. He doesn’t see us as broken, defective unchangeable human beings but rather as born-again new creations in Christ.

The heart of God is revealed in Peter’s life in such clear ways. Other than Judas, Peter was the only apostle who directly denied his relationship with Jesus – not once but three times. And yet, less than two months later, the Holy Spirit chose Peter to deliver the very first gospel message on the day of Pentecost to launch the church of Jesus on the earth. He was enabled by the Spirit to preach that sermon to the same people before whom he had denied Christ. Jesus came to take away our shame and grant each of us a place of purpose and honor in the kingdom. Shame has no place in the kingdom because in Christ we are all loved, all worthy, and all significant. Any whisper to the contrary is a lie.

For those of us who struggle with a lingering sense of shame and unworthiness, we must choose daily to agree with God and say what he says about us while we reject the lies and taunts of the enemy. Remember….”Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom.8:1); “Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb.10:14); and… “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:6). If you are in Christ, there is no shame. When the whispers come call them lies. Let the enemy know who you are in Christ and send him on his way. In Jesus, you have no past – not even yesterday – and you are glorious! Be blessed today.