So the first reality when you trusted in me is that you became an entirely new person. The old person that you were no longer exists. You are now a righteous new creation.
The second reality is this: I have completely taken the sin issue between us off the table. It is gone. I came to completely take away the sin issue at the cross, and I completely took it away!
What does this mean for you? For one, it means that there is never, ever any condemnation for you. Do you understand why there can’t be any condemnation for you? You and I are one. What happens to me happens to you. What happens to you happens to me. If you are condemned, I am condemned.
I paid the penalty for every one of your sins, past, present, and future. If the Father were to condemn you for anything, he would be saying to me, “Your death was insufficient. The penalty you paid wasn’t enough.” Do you think he is going to do that?
Besides, who is there left to condemn? Your old man, the source of your sins, has already been executed on the cross with me. The only “you” who exists now is the new man, birthed by my Spirit. You are born of God. On what basis would the Father condemn your holy, righteous new man?
There is no condemnation for those who are in me. So don’t take any condemnation—from the devil, from others, or from accusing thoughts that are never from me. I want you living in the extravagant freedom of my full forgiveness. Because you are fully forgiven.
Reject as well any general sense of condemnation. “You’re not good enough. You don’t measure up. You keep falling into the same sins.” That never comes from me. You are the one I have chosen to live through, just as you are. You are not a liability to me. You are my asset. You are my chosen vessel. I am pleased to live my life through you.
You and I are one. You are not just accepted; you are completely acceptable.
Not only are you not condemned for any sin you commit, the Father doesn’t even deal with you according to your sins. The Father only deals with you out of his tender love for you, according to what is best for you. He no longer takes your sins into account.
But what about God’s discipline, you ask. You fear that God will punish you—discipline you—for your sins.
No. Absolutely not. I dealt with the sin issue at the cross, both for the here and now and for eternity. It is off the table, remember? You and I are one. Is the Father going to discipline me for your sins as well? “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.” That is you!
So what is discipline? Discipline simply means training. Because I have removed the sin issue, the training doesn’t involve accounting for your sins. Instead, the training is the process of growing you up. It is the process of me being fully formed in you. That’s what I’m after. I am fully formed in you when I am living my life in its fullness through you. Sometimes that process involves failure, pain, and hardship. You must learn that the way of self-effort, even religious self-effort, is not my life. Your self-effort has to fail before you are ready to embrace me as your life.
So training can at times be difficult. But you have nothing to fear from it. Perfect love casts out all fear, and I love you perfectly. I never do anything toward you that is not for your very best. How could I? We are one.
Far from dealing with you according to your sins, I came to do just the opposite in you. I came to deliver you from sin-consciousness. I don’t want you looking for sin in your life. I don’t want you focused on avoiding sin, either. You already died to it. It has no power over you. I don’t want you focused on sin, period. I forgave all your sins. I crucified your old man, who was the source of sin in you. I already dealt with sin!
Don’t you see that having a sin-consciousness is completely contrary to me living my life in you? As long as you are focused on sin, you aren’t focused on me. And when you are focused on sin instead of me, you fall back into self-effort and self-improvement. “I have to get my act together for God!”
No. Just … no. That’s a dead end. I want your focus entirely on me. I am the life in you. I am everything in you. I live in you, and I always live unto the Father. Only I can do that.
Be conscious of me. Period. Have a Christ-consciousness, not a sin-consciousness. And if you do something that clearly doesn’t originate with me, simply agree with the Holy Spirit about it. “Lord, that wasn’t of you.” Then look back at me in faith. Affirm that I am living my life through you, regardless of how it appears. Affirm that I am doing that in you right now. Affirm it over and over, and I will show in you, and through you, that it is true.
I’ve said all of this before:
… but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. (Hebrews 9:26)
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)
Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. (Romans 8:33-34)
I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake. (1 John 2:12)
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13)
Just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.” (Romans 4:6-8)
God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. (Hebrews 12:7)
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear … (1 John 4:18)
My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you … (Galatians 4:19)
For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? … but [Jesus], having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God … For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:1-2, 12, 14)
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