You're innocent

Daily Devotional Podcast. Follow along with blog post.

"There is therefore now no condemnation [no shame and no guilt] for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). 

In other words, if you're in God and His spirit lives in you, then you are covered by His blood and His stripes. Yes, that means you're good to go. And again, Romans 8:1 says, there's no condemnation. That means there's no guilt and no shame to those who are saved by Christ Jesus. You've been proven innocent and today I'm coming to tell you that if anything you've done in your past is bothering you or if anything that was done to you is bothering you, let it go. Release it. Give it to God for good this time.

I say all of that because for years I lived in unforgiveness towards myself, because I had messed up so bad in not living up to the achievements I wanted in life that I just didn't forgive myself for anything. I just really beat myself up. Years back I didn't forgive myself for moving to a new city where I had to struggle and I had to start on the bottom. I didn't forgive myself for putting my children in that situation after I moved there. I also didn't forgive myself because I moved without thinking things through. I was careless and failed to plan adequately, so I walked around in regret for many years -- many years because of that -- until one day God delivered me from those feelings of helplessness. From all of those sleepless nights of regret. I started walking out what I was praying for and I started living what Romans 8:1 says. Yes, I started really believing it. I started putting faith behind those words by forgiving myself and realizing that yes I made mistakes, yes I made bad decisions. But I knew what the Lord said about me and how He felt about me. And of course nothing has changed today. I know how He feels about me and I know what He says about me. That's right, so now I'm living in freedom, because I decided to accept that what happened, happened and that there was absolutely no reason for me to look back anymore. It wasn't helping me and it wasn't helping anybody else. I was done with all of that. And now I'm free. Yes.

Now I know that when we step out in faith, we have to ensure we do all we can with the planning and setting ourselves up for success. In other words don't just leap out there with nothing. We have to plan. We have to do all we can in the natural and God will do the rest for us, but I didn't even do all I could do in the natural really. So I'm here to tell you that there is no condemnation. We are free from that because God says He will never leave us and never forsake us even when we fall short. Yes, we are covered by His blood and because of that, we are blessed in the city and blessed in the field. God will still bless you just as He blesses any of us when we fall down. He will pick us up and He will wipe us clean, because the slate has been wiped clean. He will carry our burdens for us. We don't have to carry them. Remember, He died on the cross so we wouldn't have to do all of that. We wouldn't have to carry everything. He's bigger than any of our problems, any of our issues, and any of our circumstances. 

So, I've come to tell you to forgive yourself if you're living in unforgiveness and I'll go one step further than that, forgive others if you need to, because when we forgive others we're not doing it for them. We're doing it for ourselves so we don't have to carry those burdens, those problems, that hatred, that bitterness. But that's another podcast episode. All I'm saying is forgive yourself, and when those thoughts of regret try to creep back in, because they will, just tell yourself once again what Romans 8:1 says, "there is therefore now no condemnation [no shame and no guilt] for those who are in Christ Jesus." Be empowered by that.