Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father stop us, His kids, from condemning ourselves and each other. Father, we are dead people made alive by your son Jesus. We are free from the right, proper, and final condemnation against all sin. But we often find smaller ways, as children often do, to still judge too harshly, to talk to ourselves and each other too rashly, to hide hurtful, wrong thoughts deep in our hearts. Why do we do this Father? Because of your great love for us, Jesus's great sacrifice for us, and the Spirit's great presence in us, we have no reason to think that we should still be condemned. Help us, Father, in the name of Jesus, to stop condemning ourselves with secret comparisons to others, to stop condemning each other through gross gossip. Fill us with your Spirit, that we might live free, confident in your love, your Word, and your Will. Amen.
Your Morning Song: "You Say" by Lauren Daigle
Your Morning Scripture: Romans 8:1-2
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.
...
There is a peculiar thing about the relationship between a father and son, at least as far as I have been a father, and a son. My father loves me. And he shows it, and says it. And don't you dare ask him to hide his joy in how he loves me.
What does that mean for me, as his son? I am free.
I don't worry about him judging me, or criticizing me, or being ashamed of me. He loves me. I am free.
I am not free from his discipline, even as an adult. If I'm wrong or messing up, he'll tell me. But he tells me because he loves me. I am free from any chance that he will reject me, abandon me, disown me. Even the thought itself, if I know my papa as well as I know I do, would make him laugh and shake his head in his way. Not a chance. Because he loves me. I am free.
Our relationship with our Heavenly Father is not the same as this. It is better. More full, whole, complete, and perfectly good.
Why then, do so many of us Christians, the ones whom God has called His children, act like He loves us in some other way? Why are we so quick to judge ourselves? Criticize ourselves? Tear ourselves down? Condemn? Condemn? Condemn!
Why? Our Father in Heaven loves us. And He sent His son Jesus so we could be free from condemnation and rejection. Because of Jesus we are free from the horrible, eternal, final wages of sin, which is the forever death of separation from God and His children in Hell. Because of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is alive and active inside of us, filling us up and guiding us.
Perhaps you are like me. Maybe you've struggled over the years with how you think about yourself, with how you talk to yourself in your own heart and mind. You condemn. You throw shame all over the place. You compare. You regret. You wish you could abandon and disown yourself in the face of your weaknesses and struggles.
Maybe this is you. If it is, stop.
Stop it.
How dare you talk bad about one of God's kids.
If you could do better, sure, great. Do better. It is important that we actively fight the patterns and habits of sin in our lives. Your Father in Heaven will help you. His Son at His side, your Savior Jesus, will help you. He who lives within us, the Holy Spirit, will help you. But they will not condemn you. So why do you?
We need to be careful, as God's children, as the body and bride of Christ, not to condemn ourselves or each other, condemn being the sort of judgement reserved only for God alone. We are not Him. But we are His. We are His kids. And He loves us.
And because of God's love for us, in the flesh, on the cross, and from out of the tomb, there is no longer any condemnation for those who are in Christ. We have confessed with our mouths and believed with our hearts that Jesus died for us and rose from the dead.
We are free.
