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No Condemnation

by Jerry Ousley  
6/10/2016 / Christian Living

The phone rang. Deb answered and a woman at the other end of the line asked for me. I wasn't home at the time because in those days I was selling insurance for a company that required me to work in territories that were far enough from home that I often had to spend several days in a motel. Deb asked if she could take a message and the lady said, "Just tell him that his girl friend called." Now folks, we had only been married a couple of years and I was madly in love with my wife. I had not been fooling around and I certainly didn't have any girl friends. But how was Deb to know that? The fact is that it happens all the time; men traveling out of town, cheating on their wives. But honestly, it wasn't like that! I had been faithful to my vows.

When I got home she told me about it. I didn't know what to expect and frankly my heart was bouncing around on my ankles when I heard about it. What was she going to do? How could I convince her to believe me? I had no idea who this woman was. Believe you me; I was sweating bullets, not small twenty-two shells mind you, but the big ones like what are used in M-16's! Our entire marriage flashed before my eyes all two years of it!

Then Deb chuckled and said something smart about it. She had believed me and much to my relief she knew that I wouldn't cheat on her. To me that was a miracle. A lot of wives would have hired spies to follow their husbands around or something, maybe even "taking a contract out on them." We never heard from that woman again (thank God) and we dismissed it as a prank call. Man, someone pulling pranks like that could split up a whole lot of marriages!

The point is that my wife showed me grace and mercy (because I was completely at hers). In Romans 7:15-25 Paul describes the human experience of a believer. They have come to the Lord seeking salvation. They have believed in Christ and confessed their sin. They have been saved. Then they are tempted and they find themselves yielding to those temptations. They feel remorse for their actions and wish they hadn't done it. They feel like they've let their Lord down (and they have). Paul goes into great detail explaining that in his mind and spirit he wants to do the right thing. He longs to be the warrior for God that he imagines in his heart. And then the flesh seemes to take right over and he finds himself yielding to the enemy. He even cries out "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24).

Then he said, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." (Verse 25). It may sound like we're off the hook but we know from his other letters that we are expected to do better than that. What's the answer?

It is found in the first verse of chapter 8 and this verse is really a continuation of the thought that ends chapter 7. It says, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." The word "Spirit" is capitalized here and is referring to the Holy Spirit. As Christians, because of Christ, His sacrifice, His death, and His resurrection, when we repent and come to the Lord we have been set free from the laws of sin and death. We have been redeemed bought back to God and we are now His property. But it seems this old flesh is a hard thing to kill when it comes to sin. We try, we really do, but sometimes we just find ourselves in a trap and then comes that terrible guilt and sorrow.

But in Christ, even though we are guilty and we stand convicted, we are not condemned sentenced to death because we have been given life in the Lord. The key is the last part of that verse "who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." It comes down to how we occupy our time and mind. If we spend our time in things that will ultimately become a temptation to us then we are walking in the flesh. We're placing ourselves in positions that will result in sin. But we can dwell on the Holy Spirit. We can ever be praying in our minds. In all situations we can be mindful of His presence in us and around us and that is walking in the Spirit. In Galatians 5:16 Paul said, "I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." That's the key That's the way. We don't always do it but when we do we find that we aren't tempted as much as before and we can be happy in our decisions rather than be burdened with guilt and sorrow.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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