HAVE you ever done something so stupid that you felt you were justifiably stuck with the consequences and could hardly dare hope for healing? Many of us probably have. But no matter how foolish we may
have been, or how severe the predicament we may have landed in, we won't be helped by brooding over our mistakes and continually condemning ourselves.
The demon of Self
condemnation can be a root
demon many times.... He can
be the first one in you opening up doors for other demonic spirits to enter. In life everyone mess up, everyone fail the
LORD, everyone fall down from time to time! Once you have repented, know and believe that GOD has forgiven you. But
many times after we repent, even though the LORD has
forgiven us, yet we do not
forgive ourselves.
When we are failing, and angry with ourselves, our natural way of thinking about ourselves is
something like this: "I'm a
mess, a hopeless, helpless
mess! Why can't I do what others are doing? Why can't I stop this thing that is hurting me so, and hurting others too?" You are all wrapped up in your own feelings and you think you deserve to be whipped and punished and cast into hell. But at that point GOD says to you, "What is wrong with
you my child? That is not what you are; that is only a temporary delusion to which you are giving yourself over. The truth is, you have been cut free. You are married to Christ. Your human spirit has been indwelt by the Holy Spirit and it cannot
sin. It has not sinned and does not sin. Now, you yourself, as a person, have been deceived by
the sin in your flesh, and it has taken over and has gotten you into this difficulty. But that is
not who you are. Don't believe that about yourself anymore. There is a fresh provision of the forgiveness of God and the righteousness of Christ waiting for you. You are in Christ, this is who you are. Take his forgiveness, believe it, thank God for it, and go on, and know that your struggle has ended."
That is why Paul says in
Galatians 5:17, "For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish." (Galatians 5:17).
Romans 8:1 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. Today, God wants you to receive the gift of no
condemnation. This gift will
cause you to walk tall and be a true success. This gift will also save you from a life of stress, fear, restlessness, and even sickness and disease. That is because everything that happens in your soul the emotional and mental realms will affect your physical body if it is not properly dealt with. Doctors are beginning to
realize that more people are
suffering from psychosomatic
illnesses nowadays. They are
realizing that the majority of
patients would not be suffering from their physical
conditions if they had known
how to handle their emotional afflictions such as fear, stress and worry. It is interesting to know that
the word “condemnation” in
the original Greek means
“condemning sentence”. Stress is a condemning sentence. Sickness and disease is a condemning sentence. But there is therefore now no
condemning sentence for
those who are in Christ Jesus!
When you realize and
understand that there is
therefore now no
condemnation in Christ, two
things will happen to you. The first thing that will happen when you understand that God
does not condemn you in Christ is that you will stop
condemning yourself. Do you
know that many people who are always angry are like that
because of guilt? For example, when a man feels guilty for not
being able to provide for his
family, he gets angry and takes it out on his wife. It is like having a small pebble
in your shoe. You cannot walk properly because it is
bothering you. So it is with
guilt. And you must resolve it
by going to God and thanking Him that there is therefore now no condemnation because
your sins have already been
punished in the body of His
Son. As long as you think that God condemns you, you will condemn yourself. And your body and mind are so
intelligent that, unconsciously, they believe that you want to punish yourself. So they will
say, “Okay, it’s time to pass a
condemning sentence on this
body!” And sickness is
produced. Disease is produced. But long before symptoms manifest in your body, you were already a walking civil war. The second thing that will happen when you understand
that God does not condemn
you in Christ is that you will
stop condemning others. You
will not condemn those who are also in Christ for their
failures. You will even look at
the world with eyes of no
condemnation because you
will see them the way Jesus
sees them as lost sheep who are without a shepherd. And He said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His
life for the sheep.” (John 10:11)
CAUTIONS:
There is no need to condemn yourself by thinking, “I am bad, I am bad, I cannot do anything.” You waste so much time in condemning yourself. Who are you to condemn yourself? You don’t belong to yourself. Your body is made of five elements. You cannot create the body again, so your body does not belong to you. Your pranas do not belong to you; your mind does not belong to you; your soul does not belong to you. Who are you
to claim that this is bad and that is good? Both claims are not helpful. One feeds the ego, the other cripples your creativity. Do not condemn yourself. You have no right to do that. You are created by Providence and you should learn to respect its creation. When you stumble against yourself you will also stumble in the external world. Don’t hurt yourself. Be strong. How come you are picking up the habit of having an inferiority complex? It means you feel you are a lump of flesh, a bag of bones, and a tumbler of blood with a mechanical brain inside your skull. You are more than that. You are a luminous soul, a spark of the eternal fire of Atman. You are the way you think and you become the way you think. Stop having that inferiority complex. What you eat, do, and think is limited to the body, breath, and mind. The Buddhist scriptures say that if you hate others, nothing happens to the hated person, rather something happens to you, to your mind, to your heart. You can learn to love somebody, even one whom you hate, by understanding that he is a human being like you. Who am I to hate that person? Stop hurting and hating others, for it injures you. If you constantly injure yourself, it can lead you to an action that can never be forgiven by your own mind, by your own conscience. You are constantly killing your conscience. Stop doing that. When you kill your conscience, how can you love others? You should learn to appreciate, admire, and love yourself, and then emanate that love to others. If someone else injures you it can be treated, but if you go on injuring yourself, who will treat you? The greatest sinner is he or she who constantly kills his or her own conscience. Remember that fifty percent is my job and fifty percent is your job. I do my job and you do yours. Suppose you don’t do your job; I will still continue my efforts to help you grow. A human being commits many mistakes because he is not perfect. When you sit down in meditation, have a little dialogue with yourself. What did I do today that was not right? What did I say that was injurious and harmful? This way of keeping track of ideas, thoughts, action, and speech is called housekeeping. A human being is like a multistoried mansion. In this mansion there are many subtle and finer forces of life. To manage such a magnificent mansion, you have to supervise all the levels of the mansion, not only the primitive fountains of food, sex, sleep, and self-preservation. Those who are ignorant get lost in gross objects that are subject to change, death, and decay. They are not aware of the finer forces of life that are the real interior functionaries of this mansion of life. Body is only a gross tool. Breath is finer, and finest is the mind. Actions are actions, and you should not identify yourself with your actions. You should learn to build a personal philosophy and remain free from any guilt. When you have a dialogue with
yourself and find that you have committed a mistake, do not repeat it. Why brood on mistakes and create a deeper feeling of guilt for yourself? If actions that you consider to be injurious or obstacles to the path are not repeated, then you are free. A guilt feeling comes because you are creating a law for yourself, or society is creating laws for you. If you follow the law of life, there is no reason for you to have a guilt feeling. You are your own judge, but don’t be obsessed by don’ts. Life was not meant for don’ts. The more you make your life calm, the more it becomes purified, and the whole philosophy changes. This is a process of self-transformation that actually helps you to grow, unfold, and attain. Those who know all about their mind and its various aspects, enjoy and attain the beauty of life. Life should be appreciated. No one has the right to condemn it. What is good and what is right, thinking makes it so. Surrender the mind for a while to God consciousness, and you will find peace.
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