Free of Guilt

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and champion faith in God. It emphasizes the importance of grace and abiding in Jesus. It discusses sin and redemption, highlighting that believers are not sinners but have the opportunity to repent when they do sin. It emphasizes the need to renew the mind through the word and to focus on righteousness rather than sinful habits. It encourages believers to bless others and trust in God's love and provision. It concludes with a reminder of God's unconditional love and the value He sees in each individual. Welcome to Fear No Fear. Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit embrace you today. This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture. We reject fear in any and all forms. Fear is a spiritual force, the currency of darkness and ignorance. It's what we inherited when Adam gave up his faith and Satan uses it to keep people down. His only weapon is words. If he can get you believing or looking at words of fear, he's got you. Instead, we champion faith as an allegiance to God, as a belief and trust and loyalty to the Lord God Almighty. We accept the evidence of His word as unvarnished truth, as is, just as it's written. We get close to His perfect love through the word, and perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4.18 All scripture is taken from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Visit eBible.org Job 11.15-16 Surely then you will lift up your face without spot. Yes, you will be steadfast and will not fear, for you will forget your misery. You will remember it like waters that have passed away. What is the path to guilt-free living? Grace. Abiding in His grace, hands down. It was by grace, through faith, that we were saved. It's through grace, because we can't earn it. We enjoy God's love and presence. It is through grace that we are able to praise Him, and get close to Him, and live in Him, and enjoy all the benefits of righteous living. Because we have Jesus' righteous nature by, you guessed it, grace, through faith. We're called to abide in Christ by Christ. John 15.4 In John 14.21, Jesus said, One who has my commandments and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him. And in verse 26, But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I have said to you. That's Jesus all over. He tells us to abide in Him and to keep His commandments. Then He sends us His Spirit so that we can accomplish it. Holy Spirit to teach us everything we need to know, and to remind us of anything we forget. That's grace right there. It isn't complex. Get the word in you on a regular basis by reading it with the intention of seeing Jesus revealed. With the intention of hearing His voice on the pages. Praise God and obey the Lord. That's about it. That's your process. Your flesh gets less, and Jesus gets more of your thought time. You think about Him, talk to Him, thank Him, praise Him, ask Him, and listen to Him. We don't have to follow the Old Testament law. No one could ever keep every one of those laws anyway. That wasn't their purpose. One thing that they were purposed for was to show us the heart of God. The total 100% righteousness He inhabits. The righteousness He calls us to live out. Jesus managed it. So that we can as well, He gave us His nature. We get to be the way He was. Carbon copies. We get to stay that way by abiding in Him. Focus on the flesh. End up sinning. Focus on God. Return to the habit of sin. Less and less and less. That's right. You see, I am not a sinner. You heard me. I am not a sinner. But what about Romans 3.23 you say? For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. I agree with that. I am still not a sinner. Well, you say, what about 1 John 1.8-10? If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we haven't sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. I agree with that too. I have sinned. I will in all probability sin again. But I am not a sinner. It's true and it shouldn't shock you or ruffle your feathers. Not if you're a believer anyway. Because then, you're not a sinner either. We were redeemed by Jesus' sacrifice. Ephesians 1.7 He paid the price for sin. All sin. Revelation 5.9-14 He died so no one has to. 1 John 2.2 He went to hell so I don't have to. 1 Peter 4.6 Ephesians 4.9 The Father raised Jesus to life so that I could also live. Romans 4.25 I accepted that. I believed it. I received it. I declared Jesus to be Lord. I confessed it. I was baptized. That's all Romans 10.9 I was reborn. John 3.3 I was given a new nature as I was made a new creature. 2 Corinthians 5.17 I have Jesus' nature. His righteousness. 1 Corinthians 1.30 A child of God. Galatians 3.26 A co-heir with the anointed one. Romans 8.17 I am not a sinner. 1 Peter 2.24 I was a sinner. And it is possible for me to sin again. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats because it isn't of faith. And whatever is not of faith is sin. Romans 14.23 But I am not a sinner. I am a child of God who has to force myself to go against my nature in order to sin. When I abide in Jesus, I'm reading the word to hear his voice, meditating on it, walking in his way, and praying throughout my day. It's hard to sin. It doesn't feel right. I don't like it. And the fact is that if I only do what I see my father doing and say only what my father says and how he says it, then I can't sin. The problem is my flesh has habits. Sinful habits. And when I listen to it, when I take my eyes off Jesus, when I stop meditating on the word, listening to his voice, and watching what path I am setting my feet on, well then it's easy to sin. Jesus answered, aren't there twelve hours of daylight? If a man walks in the day, he doesn't stumble because he sees the light of this world. But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles because the light isn't in him. John 11, 9-10 It's all about habit. Sin is a habit of the flesh. Righteousness is a habit of my spirit. Where I choose to spend my time is where my actions will be. Matthew 12-34 and Luke 6-45 Right or wrong. Kingdom of light, kingdom of dark. Knowledge or ignorance. There is no gray here. When I do wrong, Holy Spirit is there to correct me. To shine light on where Jesus is and ask why I didn't trust Jesus enough in that situation to walk where he is. To show what the Father is doing and saying. To remind me to be mindful. To repent, truly repent. And to step back to faith. The full persuasion that enables me to lay my trust in the Lord and do. We must all take up our cross daily. To deny the flesh habit. To indulge the spirit habit. I am not a sinner, but I can sin. I thank the Father for his grace when I do. Because once I realize what I have done. And see what Holy Spirit is showing me. I have the opportunity to repent. That's not a quick I'm sorry and on with life. This is not a license to do whatever we want. This is a studied decision to stop what I am doing. Apologize, make things right. Turn around and walk where the Father is. Instead of where my flesh might like to, want to or feel like. I choose to acknowledge that what I feel isn't real. I thank Jesus for his sacrifice. So I do not have to live with sin, any sin. I thank Holy Spirit for lighting the path for my feet. So I can see clearly and choose to step that way. I thank God that I am a new creature. A mindful spirit habit making creature. Covered by grace every step of the way. Now God will change you. You will lose your taste for sin. And every day in every way you will get better and better. Not through your own efforts. But through the renewing of your mind through the word. You will get relationship with the Lord if you will pursue it. That's huge. And it gives back more than you can imagine. Why? Because God is a God of increase and blessing. Not just in our world but spiritually. Yes and amen to that. Abiding in the Lord brings security, peace, misery so far gone from you that you barely remember it at all. Brightness, confidence, hope, protection and rest. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Read Job 11.13-20. You will see everyone. Read Galatians 5.22-25. You will see more. Read Psalm 91. You will see even more. We are by grace through faith brought into the family of Jesus. We are joint heirs of Christ. Jesus was a Jew. We are adopted into that bloodline in the spirit through Christ. We are heirs and descendants of Abraham. We are heirs and recipients of every promise ever written in the Word from the first page to the last page. Including and especially the ones that haven't come to pass yet. Through grace by faith not just the blessing but also the responsibility of Abraham is ours. What is it? To bless those around us. We can't bless if we're not blessed ourselves. Sometimes our mistake is just to look at physical things. Oh, do I have money? Do I have food to share? But it can be time, a kind word, a kind deed. Moral support, mental support. Just an ear to listen to them. There's a thousand million ways to bless people if we're willing to listen to the Spirit and walk where He wants us to walk. Again, I am not talking about a problem-free life. Jesus said we would have problems. But I have problems. The problems don't have me. I see them. I acknowledge their reality. But I give them to Jesus and put them on the cross. I take their reality and put it into a higher reality. After that, they can't affect me. If they want to stress someone out, cause anxiety, fear, or disturbance I direct them to the cross. That's where they live. Me? I'm in a boat with Jesus. Secure in my victory in Him. I don't care about them because the Lord has my cares. 1 Peter 5-7 No matter what happens to my flesh or where it finds itself I am full of blessing, prosperity, health, joy, and peace. I am praising the Lord in whatever circumstance I find myself in. Because I'm free. I'm content. I'm blessed of the Lord. I am richly blessed of the Lord. Are you? You can believe it and receive it. It's yours if you want it. Abide in Jesus and then surely you'll lift up your faith without a blemish. You'll be secure. Wrapped in the perfect love of God. You will feel no fear. And no fear will be near. Amen. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Ezekiel 16, 8-14. We were nothing. No one. Just people. But God saw something else. Something special. Something no one else did. You. God saw you. And he set his heart on you. He covered you. Bathed you. Clothed you. Adorned you. Fed you. And showed you the beauty in you that he saw from the very first moment. He did not wait for us to come around before he loved us. He didn't let anything we did or didn't do get in the way of his loving us. He doesn't love us because we're good. He loves us even if we're bad. He loves us if we love him. He loves us if we don't. He loves us. He loves us. He loves us. Period. And he will do anything and everything for us. Just because. Honestly. Read the word and see. Jesus. God. Loves. You. As we close, remember that you have birth. You are precious and valuable. Declare this. Today, God loves that I. Now you fill in the blank. Was it a meal you made? A smile you gave? Did you get out of bed? Read? Put on socks? There's no wrong answers here. There is no end to God's love. And no end to the things about you that he loves each and every day. Pick one. Remember the Lord loves you. Just because you're you. First John 4, 9 to 10 tells us. By this, God's love was revealed in us. That God has sent his only born son into the world. That we might live through him. And this is love. Not that we love God. But that he loved us. And sent his son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. His perfect love turned away God's wrath because of sin. And it casts out our fear too. See verses 18 and 19. We love because he first loved us. He just loves us. Can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.