On Wednesday I went to my college. I’m scared of this school, but I looked at Jesus and with Him it wasn’t all that scary. I saw my friend and she was glowing. We went to her old math teacher and she talked about her hand not working anymore and how she was sad she was not able to teach soon. I heard a voice saying pray for her hand. I don’t know if it was me, or God or satan, but I was so afraid. I could not ask her if I could pray for her hand. So I went home feeling terrible because I kept repeating to myself “see you can’t get over this, see you have failed. You will never be able to handle the weight of the good things God has for you.”
I fought back with, “His word will prosper in the thing for which He sent”.1 However, my root is that I judge myself. I condemn myself. Half of me wants to fight with God’s word and the other half wants to be a judge. I can’t be half for myself and half against myself.2 Since my judge is stronger, all of me soon became my judge. I talked to my mom and she said the situation is like saying a bad word. Am I going to sit in the thought for days, “omg I’m a sinner, omg God doesn’t love me anymore, just because I made 1 mistake? Just because I was afraid?”
No the love of God is something that is greater than all, Paul said, “nothing, I believe, can separate us from the love of God.”3 I asked, “was it a sin that I ignored God’s instruction?” Because that’s what deteriorates me, that I am not obedient4 because of fear.5 I think if only my stupid self would get it together and actually believe. This is my root, this is the honest truth I think of myself. My mom said you’re looking at the one “bad” thing and forgetting about the rest of you. She’s told me, you do nothing “wrong”. In Italy I pray to have this demon of fear released from me, that the Holy Spirit touches me in a way that will transform me for the rest of my life and I can hope in that because all things work together for good for those who love GOD.6 Now, with my root, maybe that thought was God, maybe it was me. IDK> but I had forgotten what the forgiveness of sins means.
Sin has a “power” meaning it has an incredible ability to control. And that force has been all I can feel when I judge myself against God. When I magnify the mistake and present it to God. Romans 6: 2-6 (NLT) “…since we have died to sin how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined Him in His death?…so that sin may lose its power in our lives.” WOW.
When I make a mistake, a sin, what I see is letting God down;7 that power of judgement and condemnation is powerful in my being. Its so powerful that I get into a cycle of deterioration, and end up believing that I am a failure, never accomplishing the good plans God has for me. No matter how many times I say, “HIS WORD WILL PROSPER IN WHAT HE SENT IT”, I believe that He choose the wrong person because all I can do is fail.8 So, I forget the cross, I forget what Jesus did and think they all must hate me.
The next thing I read was Romans 6: 11 (NLT), “So you should consider yourselves dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.” WOW. Its not that sin is greater when its power is potent in me. Sin’s power is not greater than Christ in me, it’s my natural reaction to forget the Word of God and what I had read before hand because emotions were so potent.
Sin hasn’t gone away, Christ didn’t come to take away sin, He came to change the dynamic of it in me. Sin’s power in not greater its just that I need to actively remember, “wait. Okay, I made a mistake”. When I feel sin’s power I can remember, “I am dead to this. I am dead to this power that’s trying to condemn me.” I don’t pertain to this condemnation that wants me to believe I am unworthy or unable to be in God’s presence. Because even though we truly are not worthy nor even close to being worthy GOD JUDGED US9: those who believe in Christ Jesus = worthy. ENOUGH.
He loved us in-spite of us, being who we are, by sending His son to die for us. To take on that “power” of sin, and live its consequences, WHICH WAS TRUE DEATH, something believers will never go through, so that we can always stay in the presence of God. My mom told me God just wants you with Him. God wants you close.10 Because He loves you. I forget His love is unconditional, completely independent of me. What that means is whatever I do, His love won’t change, His love will continue to be Jesus coming down and dying just for me, because He hoped and ultimately knew, I would love Him back.
My whole life is to learn how to Love Him and accept His love. So, the power of sin wants to make me believe that none of this is true. “There’s no way God can love you. Because look at you, you’re a walking disaster, you’re a failure. You just let Him down.” So, God took me to Romans 8: 33-39 (AMP) WOW.
“Who will bring any charge against God’s elect (His chosen ones)? It is God who justifies us [declaring us blameless and putting us in a right relationship with Himself]. Who is the one who condemns us? Christ Jesus is the One who died [to pay our penalty], and more than that, who was raised [from the dead], and who is at the right hand of God interceding [with the Father] for us. Who shall ever separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? Just as it is written and forever remains written, “For your sake we are put to death all day long; we are regarded as sheep for the slaughter [Ps 44:22] Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors and gain an overwhelming victory through Him who loved us [so much that He died for us]. For I am convinced [and continue to be convinced—beyond any doubt] that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present and threatening, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the [unlimited] love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I see it as 2 steps, remember that sin’s power is dead. You are dead to it. Meaning don’t give it life, don’t give it reason, a footing, validation. DON’T VALIDATE IT. NO MATTER HOW RIGHT IT IS. because that’s the tricky thing ITS RIGHT11, to me sin is correct. I look inside my heart and I see sin. That’s normal, I am interconnected with sin.
Yet what surpasses the sin in me is Jesus, that’s why my only goal in life is: BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON.12 I will always sin, I have not accepted that and I need to. I cannot be perfect, sinless, or spotless in this life.
Yet in front of God, I have right standing. Standing with all my past (and future) sin. God loves me even though I sin. He loves me even though I will make mistakes. And He will still love me, with everything. LOOK AT THE CROSS. I once saw a thing on pinterest, “For a moment I felt awe for a God who loved me enough to hate the things that hurt me without hating me for causing them”. I cause sin. And it is in me, yet He loves me. He called me to Himself by NAME, all of me.13
Romans 8:28 (NLT) says because I love GOD. I do I honestly do. And He can see that. So I am dead to sin’s power and alive to God. Thats why Paul said, “rejoice in the Lord, always.”14 When you live by Christ, grace, you are no longer judged against, not rejected, nor condemned.15 JESUS Christ is it. He is everything. Just because you believe.16 This morning my aunt said what you plant, you sow. I was planting too much self-judgement. I was my own control in my life, in my head and in my deep-rootedness. In my spirit, I became a manifested voice of condemnation. I have to start healing. I have to start letting God be love in my life. Letting Him love me. And letting Him be the only one in control of all of my 3 selves.
AMEN>
Index
1- Isaiah 55: 11 NLT
2- Mark 3: 24-25 ESV
3- Romans 8: 39 ESV
4- Psalms 32: 1-2 NLT
5- Philippians 2: 12-13 NLT
6- Romans 8: 28 NLT
7- Jeremiah 2: 13 NLT
8- Exodus 3: 11- 4: 14 NLT
9- Colossians 1: 22-23 NLT
10- Hosea 2: 20 NLT
11- Zechariah 3: 1- 5 NLT
12- Romas 8: 29 NLT
13- Isaiah 43: 1 NLT
14- Philippians 4: 4 NLT & 1 Thessalonians 5: 16- 18 NLT
15- John 3: 18 AMP
16- John 20: 29 NLT