No Condemnation

by Ken Green

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh…" (Romans 8:1-3, NIV)

Some are convinced that we can change by digging up our past. Psychoanalysis, it’s called. Sigmund Freud believed that human behavior is determined by powerful, inner forces which are buried in our subconscious. We suppress all kinds of negative experiences. And Freud’s theory was that if we dig and drill into that dark and hidden past and bring it to light, then healthful change will emerge.

Now, I would think that any loving counselor would ask you what’s happened in your life. But the Bible teaches that the key to change is not necessarily remembering things that may have happened that we have buried within us. The key is facing what we do remember. If it is something bad that we’ve done, receive God’s forgiveness. If it’s something bad someone else has done, forgive it and then forget it. That is, don’t dwell on it. Don’t let it be your life’s focus. Don’t allow it to destroy your peace.

And that’s the order in which it must happen: face, forgive, and forget. Don’t try to forget without forgiving. Don’t try to forgive without facing. But after you face it, by God’s grace you forgive it. And then you forget it.

You are not a victim! Awful things may have happened to you, but they do not have to control you! You may let them control you, but they don’t have that power in themselves. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Once you are in Christ and continue in that relationship nothing can condemn you, knock you down, or grind you under. You are a child of the Living God! You are not a victim. Romans 8:31 says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” The answer is: No one can. God is for us!

Romans 8:37 says, "No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." Nothing has happened or will happen that, by God's grace, you can't climb on top of and rule over and, in the power of the Holy Spirit, be set free from. But first, we've got to dump faulty plans for change that don't work, like endless digging in the past.