No Condemnation in Christ Jesus -- at All

For so long, I had this lingering sense of shame in my life.

I kept thinking that there was something more that I needed to do in order to be OK.

I cannot believe that amount of time that I wasted going around and around in quiet places to calm this sense of shame in the back of my mind.

The only thing that I knew as a motivation for so long was. . . condemnation, shame, guilt.

I just had no idea that those feelings were tied to that condemnation.

Yes, there was fear. There was the dread of torment of wrongdoing all the time. 

I still had the hard thoughts of wrongdoing overtaking me.

I had to do something about the bad feelings in my life, I had to answer the lies and frauds in my life, too.

The enemy attacks us with lies and frauds all the time.

All we need is the Word of God to remind us of all that He has done for us.

The negative questions, the fearful apprehensions, would stir up and I would resort to fighting them off with the word.

Now I can tell you that I felt guilty just for having those fearful thoughts. Yes, I felt bad about feeling bad. Not any more.

The gift of righteousness is the crucial basis for receiving everything else, including assurance about the future.

I could read the word at length, but the sense of shame was still all too prevalent. I could not quiet those fears with recurring fights to the Word.

I had to rest in the truth of all that Jesus did at the Cross, that He had already paid for everything at the Cross. The not-so merry-go-round of fighting with my feelings all could have been stopped with the full assurance of the grace of God.

The next line of thinking that would assert itself in my mind: "how do I fight off this shame and fear in the future? What if I start feeling this way again"?

The answer to every fear once again lies in the truth of God's Word: "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want". That statement answers everything.

It has been the hardest struggle for me not to avoid sin, but rather to reject fighting with feelings of condemnation, and recognizing that they are lies which do not deserve any notice. A preserve sense of perfection had been so dominant in my life, the need to fight and fix and have perfect feelings. No room was permitted to feel guilty or shameful.

Besides, the Word of God had declared the fullness of His presence in my life, and that was all that was needed.