1. Are you under condemnation?
Last updated 10 May'98
Are you weighed down by accusation? Does the enemy of God put you down? This is written especially for Christians who are suffering from guilt, inferiority or fear. If you suffer any of these, then be assured here and now, that God is no longer the Judge but the Justifier of all who are in Christ by new birth. Condemnation stems from accusation - and that's the role of Satan. You can be free of such attacks, however - if you will stand firm against his attacks, with the knowledge of the truth.
To really understand what accusation is, let us use the picture of a courtroom scene, situated in Heaven. Here we have God as the supreme Judge, presiding over all. On the right is the Lord Jesus, our defence attorney (1 John 2:1), representing us as our Justifier. On the left we have Satan as the accuser of the Brethren, who accuses us day and night before God (Revelation 12:10). He is the prosecuting attorney and chief complainant.
In fact, Satan accuses us in two places. In heaven, he accuses us before God. On earth, he accuses us directly - at our conscience - so as to cause our conscience to become offended or loaded with guilt. If we are suffering from a conscience that has become offended then we are suffering also from broken fellowship with God. Broken fellowship means that for some reason on our part, God is temporarily not able to communicate with us. We have cut Him off, or hung up the phone. We are isolated and on our own. We have to know that our conscience is a vital faculty of a "born again" spirit - the spirit you received from the Lord Jesus at the cross when He was resurrected.
NB:- Your spirit and God's Holy Spirit are NOT the same spirit. Our spirit is that which has came out of Jesus - our "born again" spirit - and it is that which constitutes us as sons of God.
Galatians 4:6
and John 1:12
All Christians need to know that whatever is born of God does not sin - for God does not sin and that which is born of Him has the same nature (1 John 3:9). Therefore our spirit cannot sin - but it certainly can be depressed or oppressed (quenched or grieved). Our spirit is grieved when we do that which God does not desire and quenched when we don't do that which he does desire. Both are sin, because both fail the expectation of God for us and thus fall short of His glory. Sin causes separation from God in fellowship - for He can have nothing to do with sin, for He is pure and perfect.
When we sin, therefore, we have now an inbuilt monitor that tells us we are wrong. This monitor is our conscience. We do well to heed its judgement of our actions because it tells us from God that we are wrong. If our conscience is clear then we have no sin.
Satan's accusations are aimed directly at our conscience through our mind or feelings. If our will opposes the thought in our head or the feeling in our emotions then Satan can be denied access to cause offence to our conscience.
Our conscience works on the bases of our knowing. It judges according to what we know. Do not confuse this with memory. One is of the mind, the other of the spirit. What we know is all that which God's Holy Spirit has been able to reveal to us up to this point in time. The content is pure truth from God. Revelation is no more and no less than what God's Holy Spirit has revealed to us about the Lord Jesus; especially what God has done with us at the cross and made us to be in Him. We all have received some degree of revelation of what the Lord Jesus has accomplished on our behalf and what God has made us to be in Him. No one has the same degree of revelation as another. Some may have more than I, others less. Revelation is, for a better word, 'spiritually knowing'. It is not to be confused with mentally acquired knowledge. Mentally acquired knowledge is just head theory and related to mind education, whereas revelation is spiritually knowing in your heart and related to our very life.
Basically the mind is not designed to 'know' anything, it is the faculty of our soul that we use to think, to reason and to understand with. Our spirit is where the action is and it is that part of us that knows and has faith. All our 'knowing' is spiritual, all our reasoning and understanding is mental. Our spirit does not require thought or reason to know and it may often be without such reasoning and understanding initially, but one thing is certain; our spirit knows, where as our mind merely reasons and understands what we know. That which our spirit knows is always truth and God is truth. We know God in our spirit and the degree we know God in our spirit is directly proportional to the degree of our revelation of Jesus. We receive revelation through the intuitional faculty of our spirit, not from the thought or reason of our mind. Basically, whatever has come to us in our spirit that is not through intuition has come to us from our mind and the source is not God. In our spiritual life we need to follow after the leading of intuition and act according to what God has revealed. God deems a Christian to be walking to His standard when he is lead by the full degree of revelation that he has received in his heart. When conscience, as our inbuilt monitor of God's judgement of our actions, says we are wrong then it is displaying the same thing in us on earth that God is saying from the court room in heaven. When conscience says we are wrong it judges our action in line with what we know from out of the content of revelation we have received from God. A certain act that may be sinful to one brother, may not be sinful to another brother due to his personal lack of revelation. Here then is the problem we have with all accusation.
The enemy accuses us to our mind and in our feelings so as to get at our heart (spirit) especially our conscience. Most times because of our ignorance due to our lack of spiritual knowledge, we fail to govern our mind and our feelings by an act of our will and therefore we leave ourselves wide open to accept accusation without question. The result is that our spirit is infected immediately and our conscience is contaminated and offended by what we have been willing to accept. Once our conscience is offended our spirit is defiled and we lose the comfort, warmth and joy of God's presence in fellowship. Our spirit then sinks into darkness as the fellowship with God is broken and we become isolated and tuned back in to our old nature. This condition occurs whenever we persist with unconfessed sin, but it also occurs when we accept Satan's accusations.
(a) THE CONVICTION FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT: Now there is a huge difference between the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the railing accusations of Satan. We need to know the difference not just in theory but in experience. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin as the spirit of Truth and Grace. The Holy Spirit never accuses us or condemns us. God gently and firmly convinces us that our actions are other than what He would do and that we are wrong. The Holy spirit is also the Spirit of Truth and He witnessed the cross. He saw the Lord Jesus both accused and condemned for our sins, that is why there is no condemnation for Christians who are identified in Christ Jesus. He not only paid for the price of our sins but He was also accused and condemned for our sins. The Holy Spirit does not ask us to beg God for forgiveness for our sins as Christians because God has already forgiven us. The Holy Spirit saw the Lord Jesus buy up all our sins with His death on the cross. The Holy Spirit knows that the blood of Christ has been shed. God accepted the sacrifice of His Son's life and in return gave man forgiveness for sin . What we need when we sin is help from God, not accusation, and this is what the grace of God does. The Holy Spirit first of all convicts us of sin and causes us to confess that we are wrong. He then leads us back into fellowship with God through the cleansing power of the precious shed blood. God's dealing with the Christian who sins is by the principle of His grace to us in Christ; never again by the principle of God's Law. The law states that I must do to please God. Grace says relax, God's already provided you with the death of the Lord Jesus. He has paid also for this one! .......and you are absolutely absolved from doing anything about it other than exercise simple faith in Christ's victory over sin for you. God restores us on this basis and only on this basis, and on no other. God neither accuses us or condemns us anymore.
(b) THE ACCUSATIONS OF SATAN: The accusations of the enemy on the other hand are the opposite of God's grace with the conviction of the Holy Spirit. His voice is forceful, judgemental and condemning. He accuses us according to the Law and Commandments of God, suggesting that God is now punishing us, or that we have fallen too far this time, or that God's grace for us has run out! He has a never ending stream of accusation that he tries on us in the hope that we will accept at least one. Every one without exception is a lie from the pit itself. Satan is the father of lies from the beginning. It is his nature to lie and it is his nature also to be the accuser of the brethren. God always convicts His children, He treats us as Sons; God never ever accuses, condemns, judges or punishes us. If in fact that were true then Jesus Christ died in vain for us, because we believe that He bore all our judgement, all our punishment and all our accusation for us and on our behalf. He was our representative on the cross, He stood in for us and suffered everything that we should have suffered - we do well to remember this.
(c) SATAN'S ACCUSATIONS ARE ON GOING AND UNRELENTING: The enemy of God will accuse us wherever and whenever he can, but we have to provide him with opportunity ourselves before he can do anything to us or with us. Satan has NO POWER and NO AUTHORITY over a Christians life unless we allow him to through pure ignorance or plain stupidity. Both God and Satan are bound by the same spiritual law to treat mans will as sovereign to man. If man decides to accept God's truth, then God will work in man; but if man decides to accept Satan's suggestion, then Satan will oppress man and commence a work of destruction upon his spiritual life. In the garden, Adam accepted the serpents suggestion through Eve and ate of the tree of knowledge, thus giving Satan permission to work in him and graft his nature of sin into all mankind. The point is here; Adam had to choose before Satan could do anything and so it is with us today. Ignorance is the basic cause of accepting accusation. God is still saying that His people (Christians) are still suffering at the hands of the enemy today because of lack of spiritual knowledge. The main reason why the Church in Australia today is so weak is for the same reason; Lack of spiritual knowledge. Our Church leaders today lack Life because the lack fresh revelation from the Lord, few there are that minister any spiritual life at all! Those who just minister the 'word' without having the Life condemn their people; they minister death! Brother, we need 'Life Giving' ministers of the spirit of God to come forth and minister life to the 'body of Christ' in Australia today! Then at long last we might get off our spiritual backsides and start to grow up as a spiritual people!!!
The devil prowls around us Christians like a roaring lion, seeking out those who will give him permission to assault them, by accepting accusation from him. As we have said already, all accusation in a Christian's life is from Satan. Outside of Christ in the world, all are accused and condemned because they have no covering for their sin. In the Body of Christ, Satan seeks to stunt our spiritual growth and put us down by enticement and deception. Accusation is nothing more and nothing less than an enticement device Satan uses with the permission of our will to attack our spirit and cause it to sink into darkness. Oh that more Christians would see this and stop blaming themselves for something that is not of themselves, but from the mouth of a roaring toothless lion! It has been stated before that the Lord Jesus removed the lion's teeth at Calvary, and this is true. Satan has lost his authority and power over a Christian's life completely. No longer does he have the authority to kill and cast into hell. The Lord Jesus now has the keys both of death and hell. (Revelation 1:18) The intent of the enemy is to attack the 'Life of Christ our spirit' ....but he can't do that directly, but only indirectly. He works from outside in, which is the reverse of God, who always works from inside of our heart outwards.
I will try to explain that. God first of all gives us a new spirit and then puts His Holy spirit within our spirit and commences to work in us from there at that place. The devil comes from outside and attempts to get into our soul, basically in our mind, so as to coerce our will and reap havoc on our spirit by oppression through deception. Deception is none other than accepting the devil's lies in place of God's truth. The mind is the battleground. Our will decides the issue and the outcome. If we accept accusation, our conscience will be offended by condemnation and our approach to God will be hampered by guilt. This is the strategy of Satan: to get the believer to agree with his lies so as he can oppress our spirit through a condemning conscience stemming from a mind full of accusation, rubbish and pure junk!
(d) SATAN'S INTENT IS TO BREATH SPIRITUAL DEATH INTO US: If permitted by our will, the enemy can and will, continue to lay down a barrage of accusation to the point where we start to totally despair! We may not even be sure of our born again experience any more. Has this ever happened to you? It happened to me many times early in my Christian life. Here is the problem once again, but also the solution. First of all the enemy, as we have said, is like a roaring lion, roaming about seeking whom he can devour. He needs a target that he can attack before he can devour anybody. He seems to especially seek out those who are dissatisfied with their Christian lives and want more of Jesus. Often when a Christian is this way inclined, God is at work in his environment metering out dealings to enable His Holy Spirit to construct more of Christ within him, in much the same way that a precious jewel is formed by heat and pressure. Now right here the devil makes suggestions to the believers mind in an attempt to set up a target for accusation. He does this by getting us to focus and consider 'self' apart from our glorious liberty, victory and union we have in Jesus. Now whenever you or I look at self apart from our union with Jesus, we have become separated in our vision and thus we present Satan with the easy, soft target that he is desiring.
(e) SATAN'S FAVOURITE LONG RANGE MISSILE: One of Satan's favourite darts or missiles is to suggest that we have not really changed at all. And let me assure you he is always right in this regard. True we have not changed. But allow me to encourage you and dispel the enemies assault by reminding you that...
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THE REAL CHRISTIAN LIFE IS |
There is only one person that I know that has ever lived the Christian life and that is Christ! Our position is one of death to our self will in Christ, having been crucified with Him on the cross. Our position is now one of having had our life exchanged for His. This is based solely on His resurrection alone plus nothing. He has given to us Himself, which involves a new spirit, born of God, that does not sin!!! Why does it not sin? Because it cannot. God does not sin and that which is out of God does not sin either. The problem is that we don't believe God absolutely on this point and that is our main weakness!!! If we were to believe absolutely that we have been crucified in Christ and its no longer 'self' that is alive in us now, but Christ, then we would not present Satan with such a juicy target.(Galatians.2:20) The life that we live now on earth can only be lived by the faith of God's Son in us!!! .....who loved us and gave us Himself by dying for us and by being resurrected.
Jesus is not just the author and finisher of our faith, but He is also all that goes in between!! Believe it! Jesus is alive in me and He is alive in you too. It all happens by exchange and not by change. We are changed into His likeness by exchange, never by how much we have changed as if to suggest that we might have improved somewhat. God lays us aside on the cross and substitutes the life of Christ in our place. Jesus is my everything. He causes me to be clean before God because He is clean before God. He is my righteousness and He causes me to be bright because He is Himself the light of my life. He is my life and He shines out through me as I choose to express Him to the world.
(f) SATAN'S LONG TERM GOAL: The intent of the evil spirit goes way beyond accusation. His intent is to get into your soul and reside there through the faculty of your mind. This is so that he might express himself in you in place of God. The evil spirit seeks a body that he might use to express Satan's vile nature. In the world all are fallen and under the power of the evil one. In the Church, Satan must contend with the Christian and secure agreement before he can manifest his malignant nature. One way he does this is through condemnation, and as we have said the doorway to condemnation is accusation. Satan is most pleased when he can cause an evil spirit to come in and cut across in front of a believer's beautiful and glorious spirit like a shadow or dark cloud, and cause a believer to give voice and expression to his depraved personality in place of an expression of the life of Christ. We all have these experiences but perhaps we are too flippant and we tend to excuse these as being moody or just good old annoyed or upset. Upset is probably the more accurate because something or some other personality has 'set itself up' temporarily in the place reserved for the expression of the life of Christ. We excuse this in others by saying that so and so is just not himself today, he is in a mood. In a Christian, this is foreign to his new nature, and if its not him and if its not the life of Christ then we may well ask who is it ? One thing we need to be clear on is that any oppression or possession by the enemy is not in the spirit of the believer, but in the faculty of the soul; i.e. either in the area of the mind or the emotions or both!. Our will is always the one that is choosing whom to believe and whom to follow.
(g) THE BOTTOM LINE IS IT'S OUR CHOICE If by an act of our will we choose to have the revelation in our spirit govern our mind we will spare ourselves from much accusation and deception. If by an act of our will we choose to obey the communication of intuition in place of the thoughts in our head we will make wonderful progress in our spiritual life. We should be watchful at all times over our spirit. We should know our normal state as that time when we were at our best. It is when we are experiencing that special joyful, free and peaceful state that comes when we are co-operating with the Holy Spirit and expressing the love, joy, peace and life of the Lord Jesus; just as a lamp expresses light. Our soul, which embraces our members of expression, should not now be used to express our self life as it once did. Neither should it be permitted to be used by the enemy as a piece of rag that he can soil at will. No, never !! We have undergone a glorious change by exchange and our soul is now a vessel unto honour to reflect and magnify the Life that is in our heart or spirit! Which is, of course, the Life of Christ.
The purpose of our soul now is to be an expression faculty for the life of our spirit in preference to the 'Self' life. This is to be for the glory of God and for the benefit of all mankind. We need now to be transformed by the renewal of our mind, so that we magnify in our soul the life of the Lord Jesus that is resident in our spirit. His life must flow from in, out. The connecting link between our spirit and our mouth is our soul. If something else or someone else is always resident in our soul then how can the life of Christ be expressed?. God wants us to have a soul that is unencumbered and contain a crystal clear mind. The mistake we make is to be allow ourselves to be led astray and taken captive by the thought in our head instead of adhering to the revelation from God in our heart. We must realize once again and understand that our mind is the battleground. This is the arena where evil spirits come to do battle and contest our spiritual growth. When we open our mind to our spirit we are at the same time opening our mind to the psychic realm and this constitutes a traversing of the enemies home base. Satan lives his life in the psychic realm today as the prince of the power of the air; he has not as yet been cast down to earth or consigned to the lake of fire. God does not speak directly to our mind or interfere with our emotions, neither does he coerce our will. The devil has access through the psychic to all three of these areas. God speaks to us Spirit to spirit, that means God gives us revelation in our heart through our intuition. We have to engage our mind by an act of our will to understand what our spirit is saying. The Christian is always deceived when he entertains and then follows a thought in his head. Satan has a thousand and one thoughts of accusation to plant in the head; all of them leading to condemnation. Basically, what ever thought comes into our mind that we have not put there deliberately by an act of our will is a foreign thought that has drifted in from the outside. It should be resisted, rejected taken captive and cast out.
A sound mind is one that is under the control of our own will and not someone else's. We should always be active with our mind, using it as our instrument to think our thoughts with and to reason and to understand with. A free wheeling, wandering, blank or passive mind is open season for the enemy to target and put his thought in. We Christians need to do our own thinking and not allow Satan the opportunity to think for us in our place. The devil has an unlimited hail of accusations in the psychic realm to rain down upon unsuspecting and ignorant Christians. Sincerity and honesty are no umbrella against deception, you can be just as sincerely deceived as you can be deceived honestly! Good conduct is never a method of protection against deception, but spiritual knowledge is. We need to know our mind is created sovereign to our will and our will is treated as sovereign by God. God will not interfere with our will, He respects it right or wrong. We are the ones that have to choose to willingly co-operate with God if ever we are to grow spiritually. God also in the same way never interferes with our mind. He gives us a sound mind that we are to control and He expects us to use it to understand what is being revealed in our spirit.
(h) WE ARE MADE CLEAN, BRIGHT AND SHINING! Now let's return to our picture of the courtroom in heaven. God is no longer set to judge Christians but to justify them! Even though Almighty God is presiding in the place of judgement, He is on the Christian's side and not his judge. God is now the justifier of all those who are of the faith of Jesus. Jesus Christ has already been judged. The Holy Spirit as the spirit of truth bears witness to that fact. The one that is under accusation need only see this to start to regain his freedom. God is for him now, not against him. God is on the Christian's side against all the accusation from Satan!! But God can do nothing for a Christian who is under accusation, because that one is not trusting in the Lord Jesus neither is he trusting in the cleansing power of the precious blood. If this be our situation at any time, we need to be real about ourselves and see once again our place as God sees it. We are represented in heaven in the Lord Jesus. We do not appear before God on our own. The Lord Jesus appears for us and represents us to God. God will not only acquit us but also justify us. We overcome all Satan's accusations in this way. Our answer to the accusing prosecutor should always be the truth, yet it must be followed by; "Yes, But the blood of Jesus cleanses me from all my sin." This answer is such a sufficient answer for God to justify us, that it also becomes an answer against which Satan has no appeal. The cleansing power of the precious blood of Jesus cleanses us totally in heaven before God, and on earth the same precious blood cleanses us totally from an unclear, guilty or condemned conscience; giving us in it's place, a conscience that is crystal clear, totally forgiven, forever free and peacefully bold. This is the way God has made us to be in our identification in His Son. This is the way God sees us now, because in truth and reality this is exactly the way we are. We are born of God to be clean, bright and shining. His blood makes us clean; His righteousness makes us bright; His life in us causes us to shine.
Romans 8:1-2 "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus..... For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
All we can ever do is to accept it as it is and to praise Him. “Thank you Lord Jesus! that You, and You alone, did it right for Me!”
