SELF CONDEMNATION IN THE SAINT.
All who have the indwelling Spirit of God (not just God WITH them) will go through periods of self condemnation. Paul in Romans 7 talks about this cycle.
POSSIBLE CAUSES:
1) Neglect of private devotions in the word and prayer
2) Mental stress and unresolved tensions of the home
3) Monetary concerns and lack of faith for resolution
4) Unequal yoke in the home and dependence upon the partner instead of God.
5) Time management due to unrealistic crowding of daily regimen from social media and screen addiction
6) Compulsive addiction to home or work tasks which eclipse private time with God.
7) In equally yoked marriages overdependence upon the dominant partner’s program
8) Refusal to reserve private time with God fearing the discomfort to joint regimen.
9) Addiction to the endless demands of a house-proud partner
10) A refusal to say: ‘No, not now, maybe later.’
11) Boredom in a Bible book such as in the Major or Minor Prophets which seems incomprehensible, but one’s reluctance to grapple studiously with it.
12) Unwillingness of the believer to accept that God forgets his past sins and refuses to remember them again.
13) In other words he indulges in self recrimination and self accusation, unwilling to believe particular individual sins are totally covered by Christ’s atoning blood forgetting that the Father lay on his crucified Son the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53)
14) Nostalgia filled with regret is grieving the Spirit because the believer in his doubt is unwilling to forget those things which are behind and buried in the sea of God’s forgetfulness. (Philippians 3:13; Psalm 103:12).
15) Downheartedness over the repeated failure from the besetting sin and blaming demons instead of one’s own sin only perpetuates depression. ‘But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.’ (James 1.14)
To blame demons instead of your ‘flesh’ makes one forget he is still only a sinner saved by grace. For some, however, the person concerned is a goat, not a sheep, but wearing a fleece put on by some preacher or evangelist, or ardent soul-winner. As such a goat has confessed his sin/s, but never accepted that he is a sinner. There is a world of difference.
To the saint the answer to self condemnation is found in pondering the promise: “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature”. (2 Peter 1.4). Despite his bleak and downcast spirit this will generate a refreshing relief, as will other promises: “forgetting those things which are behind”. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
The word of John’s epistle (3.20) comes to some dear struggling saint who is over mystical or compulsively looking for phenomena, instead of the precious promises from the word of God: “if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things”.
This is the difference between the downcast goat and the discouraged sheep. The goat (the follower who only has the Spirit WITH HIM, but not yet IN HIM) indulges in inescapable cycle of self pity/self justification. No matter what, he cannot leave it with God and trust the promises regardless of addictive, compulsive thought patterns.
The sheep, on the other hand, eventually assures his heart in the fact that God is greater than his internal or external conflicts. The flame of the burning Spirit that has been reduced to ‘smoking flax’ will never go out.” A bruised reed he will not break and smoking flax he will not quench.” (Matthew 12.20; Isaiah 42.3) No matter how low he gets the saint will rise up again when he ponders the promises of the Word for faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by meditating again on the Word.
How can the sheep leave his own self-condemnation behind? By pondering and meditating (not just hurriedly reading) the Scriptures whose promises impart assuring comfort.
Conceded that Satan is the accuser of the brethren, confirmed by the opposition the brethren uncover from hostile worldlings. Yet though I am beleaguered by the god of this world and his spiritual forces of wickedness there is a greater enemy: one within: “another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” Galatians 5:17
This inner enemy is one that he carries wherever he goes: ‘the body of this death’ always ready to bring him into captivity if he decides to walk independent of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. To reject original sin and pretend that dead carcass is no longer a burden means he is no longer vigilantly watchful and floats from day to day in a sea of egotist self -justification.
The saint is compelled to bear testimony of Christ in some small way, or spiritual boredom and drought will set in. Each of us brush shoulders with scores of lost souls in our day to day living. The saint, no matter how dejected, will carry something in the pocket or handbag with the gift of life. E.g. a small tract, pocket Gospel, that can be handed to ‘other sheep’ not yet in the fold of the kingdom, but whom the Father is drawing to His Son. This does not mean saturating all and sundry, but being ready when a positive opportunity arises.
Every decent, warm conversation in personal encounter, though only short is the Lord opening the heart to the Word by readying the person to receive it. Seeds must be sown for germination and you may well be the catalyst. If one refuses to carry the Word of Life, preferably without a church soliciting itself on the back page, there is no chance of a seed being deposited. This does not mean confronting the person and forcibly arresting them in their tracks, as some unwise zealots do. Evidence cannot be measured by response and that must be left to eternity, for often in most cases you will never meet the person again. Ye are my witnesses, and besides you I have no other.
BIBLE REFERNCES. (ex King James Version of the Holy Bible-Public Domain)
“Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any”…”but if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.”
(Isaiah 44:8; 2 Corinthians 4:3)
1 John 3:19-21.
19 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.
John 5:24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
Romans 8:1
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
