There Is Now Therefore

…set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.—1 Peter 1:13

Grace is my middle name. …I mean, literally: it’s my middle name. I think in general, I’m quick to forgive, quick to extend grace to others. But there is one person that I find very hard to give grace. I know her every thought and motivation, and I can anticipate her mistakes. It takes a lot for her to earn my approval. This person struggles to earn my favor, and in return, all she hears from me is, “You should’ve done more.”

In case you haven’t guessed already, this person is me.

I have realized, under the influence of my high-pressure job, that I struggle with the opposite of grace…. A hairy little thing called condemnation.

Stress brings out your worst qualities, and apparently, I have a paranoia of making mistakes that people will not forgive me for. I imagine these complicated scenarios in which something goes horribly wrong, and it is all my fault. I create situations in my mind in which I damage other people so much that they refuse to love me anymore. I destroy their trust in me.

I know, this sounds like a Hallmark movie and not like real life. Unfortunately my imagination is more in line with Hallmark movies than with reality.

I feel guilty about the fact that I am not superhuman—that I am not everything I expect others to expect me to be. In my mind, I justify every little thing I do, even though no one will ever ask me why I did it. Zealously, I deal with every little inadequacy I see in myself by self-deprecating—telling other people, with my own lips, how bad I am at things. I have to ask 1,000 questions to make sure I am doing everything “right.” I visualize every possible mistake, anything anyone could point a finger at me for and proclaim, “Aha! It’s all your fault!”

Adam is my forebear. Like him, I am thinking of reasons to justify why I ate the fruit before God even asks me. I believe, apparently, in my heart of hearts, that everyone is out to accuse me, to call my bluff. This is why I hold my breath when I see a cop, even if I’m not speeding.

The world is out to accuse us and condemn us. At every turn, it demands that we justify our every action to prove that we are “worth” something. It punishes us when we make mistakes. It judges everything we do, and then condemns us for feeling judged. My generation grew up under a rhetoric of “self-esteem,” where “everyone is a winner”—which was, for us, an unceasing backdrop of hollow noise while we struggled to “be all that we could be,” and failed.

So it is only natural that I would want to protect myself by condemning myself before the world has a chance to.

True, there are a lot of protocols at my job, a lot of things to remember, a lot of mistakes that could turn into a huge headache for more than one person. So a little worry is normal. But I worry less about the mistakes themselves, and more about “letting people down.”

Right about now, you are thinking I am a crazy person. It’s true that my subconscious self-condemnation can go a little overboard. But examine your own heart. I bet you will find some issues with self-condemnation that make you just as crazy.

There is such a thing as godly grief over your sin. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death (2 Corinthians 7:10). This kind of productive, spiritual grief is not what I am talking about, and I’m not particularly aiming to define the “worldly” variety of grief (that’s for another post, folks). I am not really talking about condemnation from sin as much as I acondemning heart, a “spirit of fear” (2 Timothy 1:7) that does not come from God; a recurring guilty thought pattern that constantly hovers over you because you feel you are unworthy.

m talking about having a

“I should have worked harder,” self-condemnation whines. “I should’ve worked longer….someone has a right to accuse me of not caring enough….What is wrong with ME?” 

And who do you think we are thinking about the whole time we are going through this cycle of doubt, guilt, condemnation, and deprecation?

I’ll give you a hint. It’s not Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be free of this spirit of fear and self-absorption. It’s not who I am in Christ.

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.—Ephesians 4:17

Self-deprecation is one of the most subtle forms of pride, and, therefore, one of the most dangerous. The condemning heart has a wrong perspective. It is the result of a lack of trust in God.

The truth is, we trust other people more than we trust God. When I walk down the street, I trust the general population not to mug me or hit me with their cars (which I should apparently not do, since I almost got flattened the other day by an SUV). I trust my coworkers to do their jobs so I don’t find myself with extra work.  And these are all other humans, people who also came from the bloodline of the first man—the guy who pointed the accusing finger at his wife when God asked him why he betrayed Him by eating of the fruit. He ate the fruit, in reality, because he didn’t trust what God said to him. Instead, he believed the serpent—the accuser. We trust—we believe—a world full of finger-pointers rather than the One who made us.

There is a deeper evil at work here. You see, if I can blame myself for things, then I am still in control of them. I may have messed up, but I am the person pulling all the strings, no matter how tangled they get. The anxiety I feel is a result of my belief that I am responsible for everything—which is (whether subconscious or not) the manifestation of my unbelief in God.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.—Philippians 2:5-7

When I blame myself for things (most often things that haven’t happened), I am trying to feel in control—counting equality with God “a thing to be grasped.” That puts a new perspective on it, doesn’t it?

Jesus, on the other hand, is completely humble. He didn’t walk around on earth in a cloak of false humility, like I do, speaking about how unworthy He was and how many mistakes He made. When people complimented how good He was at something, He probably didn’t respond with a list of reasons why He wasn’t good at it.  Instead, He probably just shrugged and said something like, “Um…I thought we were talking about my Father?”

In short, Jesus didn’t believe or speak any lies. “His face was toward Jerusalem”—He “was not ashamed,” for He “knew whom He had believed” (2 Timothy 1:12).

And we should have the same response.

And  I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.—Revelation 12:10

So…What part do we have in overcoming the “accuser”? He is conquered by the blood of Jesus, and by “the word of our testimony”—our belief in Him. In other words, when the devil points an accusing finger at you to get you self-focused, you need to remember that the only part we have in escaping this condemnation is to trust Jesus, and confess our trust. Jesus did the hard work. It is finished.

There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.—Romans 8:1-2 (You were waiting for this verse, right?)

Paul says here that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus who are good enough, perfect, never make mistakes…right? No. Read it again. “…for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Period. If you believe on Jesus, you’re clean. So stop trying to make yourself dirty because you’re afraid of what   the world might say.

The accuser in the Garden wasn’t God. All He did was ask Adam questions. The accuser was the one who said, “You will not surely die.” It was a lie. But hallelujah, now the law of the Spirit of life has set us free from death! The accuser of the brothers has been thrown down!

I don’t have to self-deprecate to bring glory to God. Do you know who brings glory to God?.......God does. He doesn’t need us to talk about how awful we are to make Himself bigger. Newsflash: He’s already bigger.

Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord (2 Corinthians 10:17). When you are sitting around talking about how unworthy you are, that’s not boasting in the Lord. And what’s more, it’s actually disagreeing with what God says you are. (I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to disagree with God.) Believers, He has made you righteous through His blood.

Sure, it might be true that you’re inadequate. Actually, it probably is. But when you speak about it, you are not believing wrongly about yourself so much as you are believing wrongly about God. You are saying that you are in control (false), and that you are much more worthy of attention than He is, because you are giving yourself first place in your thoughts. You are saying, in short, that He is not who He says He is—a Father who loves you, and who is worthy of all of your praise.

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.—1 John 3:18-20

This is one of the most perplexing and beautiful verses to me. That’s why I saved it till last—it’s the punch line in the Great Joke on the devil. John has just finished giving what appears to be a behavioral mandate: love people genuinely, with actions instead of words. By our deeds, by following all the “rules,” we can “reassure our heart before him”…right?...Well…. He knows everything, people. He invented “everything,” in fact. You don’t have to sit there and justify everything you do. He already knows why you did it—whether you tell Him the truth about it or not.

And He loves you anyway.

So stop tangling yourself in a web of your own lies and move on. He knows every sin we have ever committed, will commit, or have thought about committing. YET: no matter how much we have and will fail, we can still “reassure our heart before him.” Why?

Because He is “greater than our heart.” Praise the Lord, we don’t have to rest in ourselves, no matter how adequate and/or inadequate we are; we can rest in HIM. And He is more than enough.