Dis is an inspiring article by Pastor JOSEPH PRINCE....



Christians celebrate Christmas to commemorate the birth of
our Lord Jesus, knowing that He came to give us eternal
life. But how many realize that Jesus also came to give us
the gift of no condemnation? Once we receive this gift and
see that God no longer condemns us, then we can truly have
peace with Him while still on earth!
John 3:16—“ For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish
but have everlasting life. ”—is probably the most well-known
verse in the Bible. If there is a memory verse competition in
the church, and someone stands up and quotes John 3:16, I
think half the congregation will say, “There goes my
memory verse!”

The Reason For Christmas

However, not many people know the verse that comes after
that. And it is this verse that gives us the reason for
Christmas:
John 3:17
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the
world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Unfortunately, Christianity has been misrepresented and
used in many circles—be it by Hollywood or in churches—to
condemn people. Yet, the truth is that God did not send His
Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it.
That is why the angel Gabriel said to Mary, “ …you will
conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His
name Jesus . ” (Luke 1:31) Do you know that His name means
“Savior” in Hebrew? His name could have been “Judge” or
“Lawgiver”. But of all the names He could have used, He
chose the name “Savior” because the purpose for His
coming was to save us and not to condemn us.

The Gift Of No Condemnation

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!

What It Means To Be In Christ Jesus

Now, according to Romans 8:1, who are those who qualify
for this gift of no condemnation? They are the ones who are
in Christ Jesus. And today, you are in Christ Jesus, not
Jesus Christ.

You might ask, “Pastor Prince, is there a difference between
being in Christ Jesus and being in Jesus Christ?”
Yes, there is! “Jesus” is His human name, but “Christ” is
His official title. Before He died and rose again, He was
Jesus Christ. But after His resurrection, He became Christ
Jesus. “Christ” is now placed in front of “Jesus” because it
reflects His resurrected nature. And God wants us to know
that we are now alive in the risen Christ, the all-glorified One
who said, “ All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on
earth, ” (Matthew 28:18) after He rose from the dead!
When you believe in Christ and put your faith in Him, God
the Father sees you in Christ Jesus. He sees you in the risen
Christ who is seated at His right hand. All that Jesus is, you
are. And all that He has, you have. The Bible tells us that “ as
He is, so are we in this world ”. (1 John 4:17) Can Christ who
is seated at the Father’s right hand ever be condemned?
No. Well, neither can you, because you are in Him.

Not Right Doing But Right Being

However, Romans 8:1 has been so misunderstood by many
Christians. There are believers who think that there is
therefore now no condemnation for those who are in
Christ…as long as they do what is right.
Now, I am for what is right. I am not for what is wrong. But
that is not the criterion by which we are justified. We are
justified by the obedience of Christ.

I know that some people will say, “But Pastor Prince, the
rest of Romans 8:1 goes on to say that the gift of no
condemnation is only for those who do not walk according
to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. That is the criterion
to qualify for the gift of no condemnation!”
“ …who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the
Spirit ” is not there in the original manuscript. It was added
by Bible interpreters. And you can verify this truth in any
good Bible commentary. In fact, the New American Standard
Bible is one version of the Bible that leaves this verse in its
original form.

Therefore, the only reason that you are not condemned is
that you are in Christ Jesus. That is the only requirement.
So what does it mean: “ There is therefore now no
condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus ”? The answer
is found in the word “ therefore”. Wherever you find the word
“ therefore”, find out what it is there for.
It is there because of what the apostle Paul wrote in the
previous chapter. In Romans 7, Paul wrote about his own
struggles and how he was condemned by the law that he
knew so well as a Pharisee. He said, “ For the good that I will
to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I
practice. ” (Romans 7:19)
So Romans 8:1 only means something when you have done
wrong, because that is when the gift of no condemnation
matters to you. All of us qualify for this gift because we
have failed to keep all the Ten Commandments perfectly.
And God says, “In Christ, I don’t condemn you. Now, don’t
condemn yourself. Go and sin no more.” God is for you not
living a lifestyle of sin. But the power to do this comes when
you receive the gift of no condemnation.

Some people may say, “Pastor Prince, some people might
take this gift and start using it to live a licentious lifestyle!”
My friend, people who live a licentious lifestyle do not
believe this truth. They have not truly received this gift.
Many of them are already self-condemned and are doomed
to repeat their sin.

Do you know that God does not say that there is no
condemnation based on His whim and fancy? He does not
say, “Never mind, boys will be boys,” and then sweeps
everything under the carpet. If He did that, He would be
unrighteous. No, He has to condemn our sins. That is why
He sent Jesus to suffer the condemnation for us.
Today, you are not condemned because all the sins of your
entire life have already been condemned in the body of
another at the cross on Calvary. Jesus bore it all! And all
lawyers know the law of double jeopardy: The same crime
cannot be punished twice. Your sins cannot be condemned
in the body of your substitute, and then in your own life!

He Has Released You From The Law Of Sin And Death

Romans 8:2
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free
from the law of sin and death.
Everything and everyone on earth is subject to the law of
gravity. However, this law is broken every day at airports all
over the world because there is a law that is higher than the
law of gravity. Whenever an aeroplane takes off, the law of
thrust and lift overcomes the law of gravity.

Likewise, there is only one law that is higher than the law of
sin and death. There is only one law that overcomes the law
of sin and death that brings sickness and disease into your
life. The only way to be set free from the law of sin and
death is when the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is
released into your life.
So how is this law released? Notice that Romans 8:2 starts
with the word “ for ”. This means that it is connected with the
previous verse, Romans 8:1. So the law of the Spirit of life is
released when you receive the gift of no condemnation into
your life!

Do you know that people who call themselves “freethinkers”
are not free at all? They are bound by thoughts of fear,
inferiority, lust and pride. They are bound by thoughts of sin
and cannot stop thinking such thoughts. They also grow old
very fast, and have sicknesses and diseases. They are
under the law of sin and death because they are without
Christ. They are not in Christ.
It is only when you are in Christ that you are free to think,
because Christ came to set you free. And if the Son sets
you free, you shall be free indeed! (John 8:36) There is a
freedom that comes when you know that you are not
condemned because you are in Christ. And when you
receive the gift of no condemnation, you release the power
to overcome the law of sin and death in your life!

The Power To Go And Sin No More

In John 8:1–6, Jesus was at the temple when the scribes
and Pharisees brought to Him a woman who had been
caught in the very act of adultery. They tried to test Jesus
by asking Him whether she should be stoned according to
the law of Moses.
Now, they were trying to trap Jesus because if Jesus said,
“ Stone her,” they would say to the people, “So much for His
teachings about God’s love and being sent to the world not
to condemn, but to save.” But if He said, “Don’t stone her,”
then they would accuse Him of breaking the law.

So what did Jesus do? He wrote on the ground with His
finger. He did so not because He could not answer. He did
this to demonstrate that He was the one who wrote the Ten
Commandments on two tablets of stone with His finger
during Moses’ time. (Exodus 31:18)
Then, Jesus said, “ He who is without sin among you, let him
throw a stone at her first. ” (John 8:7) And one by one, those
who heard this walked away, being convicted by their
conscience. Now, let’s look at what Jesus did next:
John 8:10–11
When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the
woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of
yours? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.”
And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin
no more.”
Many people like to quote the last phrase, “ go and sin no
more. ” But it does not release the power to go and sin no
more. That is because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus is only released to set you free from the law of sin
and death when you first receive the gift of no
condemnation. That is why Jesus gave the woman the gift
of no condemnation before He told her to “ go and sin no
more ”!
I love to say it like this: The Pharisees would condemn her,
but they could not. Jesus could condemn her, but He would
not. Hallelujah!
So those people who think that the preaching of no
condemnation will cause people to sin more don’t fully
understand what Jesus said in John 8:11. The only way for
people to go and sin no more—the only way for people to be
empowered in their life, to walk in peace, joy and faith, and
to live the abundant life that Jesus came to give us—is to
understand that there is now no condemnation in Christ.

Two Things Will Happen To You

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)
Praise the Lord!

Walk In Peace And Be Healthy


Today, the only place that is totally safe and secure is in
Christ. Once you receive the gift of no condemnation into
your heart, meditate on it and have a no-condemnation
mentality. And you will begin to walk in peace—the same
peace that Jesus always walked in.

Jesus was always cool. He was never in a hurry. He could
even sleep in a boat that was in the midst of a storm. In the
incident in Mark 4:35–39, it was not the storm that woke
Him up, but the cry of His disciples. And when He awoke, He
said to the wind and sea, “ Peace, be still! ” It takes someone
who is inwardly at peace to change a hostile environment
into a peaceful one. He also calmed the storm in the hearts
of His disciples, which is where it all began. You can have
that same peace because you are in Christ!

As you walk in that peace, you will soon discover that you
are getting healthier, and that some of the chronic problems
you used to experience in your body are gone. You will
wake up one day and realize that the pain is gone. Why?
Because when you are at peace with God and with yourself,
your body will be at peace with you!

http://www.josephprince.org/daily-grace/articles/single/receive-the-gift-no-condemnation-and-walk-in-peace/

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