This is my first post in nearly a month. Thank you for your patience, now on to business. Over the last several weeks I have been contemplating this topic. I feel that I have been a student of both conviction and condemnation. You see conviction comes from God and leads to the repentance of sin. Condemnation, however, is man made and serves as nothing more than a means to force people to live a certain way.
Conviction is merely a nudge toward the proper way of living. For example, someone grows as a christian and feels that they should stop smoking, or another habit. We would consider those changes to be the work of God. Not so for condemnation.
Condemnation allows the one "setting the rules" to have power over the condemned one. Guilt is a very powerful tool. It can be used to manipulate large groups of people. I have heard preachers manipulate congregations ocer nothing more than their own need to feel powerful. Well meaning people raise their children under a mixture of fearing God because of what he might do, only because they were afraid of freedom of thought.
Philippians 2
Imitating Christ's Humility
1If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness.8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 12Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. 14Do everything without complaining or arguing,
Focusing on verse 12. we are to work out our salvation. As for verse one we are to not lose sight of our interests. God made us to be who we are. The singer on the stage, the dancer, the artist, the farmer, the whatever, we are given abilities and talents from birth that we are to fine tune. We may not always use them for the right purposes, but that is part of the "Work-Out." We are to encourage others in their own pursuits as those around us should encourage us.
Romans 8:1,"There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus." I will no longer allow people to condemn me. In the words of Aerosmith I will "walk this way..."
Much Love
Jonathan
PS: Coming soon, The Gospel Disney Style
