No Condemnation

 +Rick Blumenberg @rickblumenberg

Most Christians have heard the cliché "Hate the sin, but love the sinner." It may be a cliché but I believe that is exactly how God feels about it. 

Why does God love us so much?
He loves us because he is our Creator and like a loving mother who adores the child she brought into the world, God loves each of us, with no exceptions. But he hates the sin that hurts us so terribly. 

Why does God hate sin so much?
That is exactly why God hates sin. He hates it because of how greatly it harms his beloved children. What if your beloved son or daughter was attacked by an intruder in your home after he had bound you up so all you could do was watch and suffer vicariously? How much would that hurt? I believe that's how it always feels to God when he sees sin attacking us.

Satan is always on the attack.
Just like the intruder in my make-believe tragedy, Satan is always on the attack. The Bible says "Sin crouches at the door and it would have you" and we all know that's true. Temptation can attack at any time and if we give in to it we are always hurt by it. No doubt we bring much of our pain on ourselves by the choices we make, but God still sees us as the victim of Satan's attack. He understands that we are human and therefore vulnerable. He knows that the only way we can have victory over Satan's attacks is by trusting in His strength rather than our own. When we fight temptation in our own strength we will usually or perhaps always lose. 

So God understands and he wants to help.
He didn't plan for us to go it alone. We are only supposed to resist the devil after we draw near to God (James 4:7) But he knows we are weak, impetuous and strong-willed, so we will often try to live live on our own without Him. And that is how sin enters the picture. But God still loves us even when we sin. And like a parent who sees a child mess up and wants to help, God also wants to help. He will try to show us how we went wrong and how to do it better using the tool of conviction. But he never uses condemnation!

Condemnation is not from God
When condemnation rears its ugly head it does not come from God, but from Satan or our own guilty conscience. Romans 8:1 reminds us "...there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (NIV) Condemnation does not come from God (Father, Son or Holy Spirit)  God convicts and God forgives, but God does not condemn. 

God Frees us From Sin
Rather than condemning, God convicts us of our sin and forgives our sin to set us free from it's chains. Condemnation does not come from our Heavenly Father. 

And when we condemn 
We are not being like Jesus.

I'm Rick Blumenberg and that's My View from Tanner Creek.
       

Living in God's Reality

By Rick Blumenberg / @rickblumenberg

Paul wrote in Philippians 3 about living in the joy of God’s reality. Those aren’t Paul’s words, but my description of what he wrote. After you read this I hope you also read Philippians 3 thru 4:2.

Paul urges us to “rejoice in the Lord” then departs temporarily from this theme to talk about a way of living that steals our joy and fills us with deep anxiety. His thoughts and writings recalled his past efforts to attain salvation by what he thought were “good works”.

There’s nothing wrong with good works. The problem is if we try to use good works as our method of salvation. Paul now knew without doubt it was gained only by faith in Christ—not by any good works he had done. Some, he now realized, not only brought no salvation, they were not really good. They were instead, very bad works. In his zeal he had actually persecuted the same church he was now trying to build. Paul knew others who had tried that same futile road to heaven and he knew such behavior would only steal their joy. He didn’t want others to walk that same dead end road when such behavior would not gain salvation and could even find them fighting against God instead of serving him.

Paul knew God had a better idea. In verse seven he wrote, “…whatever was to my profit I now consider loss…compared to…knowing Christ….” He even considered them “rubbish”.

Paul did many good things. But call them “rubbish”?

Because such good works only bring despair if we depend on them for salvation. They produce joy only when done in response to loving God and loving humanity. We are all God’s people by creation. Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, we are all forgiven.

Paul’s former life had been lived with a wrathful view of God. Paul’s life reflected the wrath he assumed was the nature of God. When Paul met Jesus, he met God’s grace and mercy. Realizing that grace and mercy was for everyone brought Paul an indescribable joy. He had moved into the awesome light of God’s reality and found it amazing.

God’s reality is that we all are forgiven. Christ died for our sin, but too many people still live in the defeat of hopeless guilt. Mentally, even Paul hadn’t fully attained it (v. 12). Paul knew the truth of forgiveness, but he still struggled to fully grasp the limitless grace of God. Nor the fact it was for him, Paul, a middle-eastern terrorist, who had been saved from his own terror and from the terror he had dumped on the church. He now realized this forgiveness had been granted both to him and to all humanity!

Most do not grasp that God loves everyone. Paul knew his own mind still hadn’t caught up with the reality of God’s grace. In verse 16 he urged “let us live up to what we have already attained”. We are spiritual siblings of the Lord Jesus Christ because God loved us and sent Jesus to bring us all to God.

God opened the door for you to live a life of joy. That door is Jesus! An antidote for past sin, Jesus also offers faith as immunity from future sin and a welcome into God’s amazing grace.

Open yourself to the Joy-giver, Jesus. Give him past failures and claim what is already yours; a loving relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. Then God’s Holy Spirit can help you claim with heart and mind what Jesus attained for you through his death and resurrection. You too can begin to live in the joy of God’s reality. 

I’m Rick Blumenberg and that’s My View from Tanner Creek. 

   

Nelson Mandela

@rickblumenberg

President Nelson Mandela died today. I think there is no doubt he was the greatest man of the entire twentieth century and his impact on the twenty-first century will continue. He died today, yes, but he will live on for decades in the loving memory of all who knew him and for centuries in the studies of all who are students of freedom, forgiveness and firmness. He embodied all three of these virtues and his influence will live on far beyond any of us alive today.

It is ironic to note that this man who embodied freedom spent twenty-seven years in prison but when he was released and went on to become president of the nation that imprisoned him, he did so without denying freedom to those who had falsely imprisoned him for so many long years. He did so because he realized the value of freedom was so much greater than the high cost of revenge. He did not allow his stolen freedom to become an excuse to seek revenge on those who wronged him.

It appears his love of freedom and the way lived out that value in his own life and behavior brought an out-pouring of love and appreciation from almost all of his countrymen, including those who had once been his enemies and who became his friends mostly because he refused to continue being their enemy and then led the nation in a way that convinced even his enemies to become his friends. Like Jesus, he ridded himself of his enemies by converting them into friends.

He was also embodied the virtue of firmness. Throughout his life, he succeeded far beyond what any could have conceived because he held firm to those values that shaped him while rejecting that which he knew would only bring destruction to him, to his beloved nation and to the world. He firmly refused to let those prison years be wasted and instead used them to become the man who could not only be president of South Africa, but could lead all South Africans to build a democratic and capitalistic society that would embrace all its people as persons of ultimate worth and dignity. That firmness and resolve helped to bring about the robust nation of South Africa that we know today.

But possibly his greatest embodiment was the virtue of forgiveness. Without it, those other two values would never have endured. When he left prison after twenty-seven years he fully realized that he had a choice. He could continue to hate the people who stole twenty-seven years of his life and thus destroy his own future or he could forgive those guilty persons and all of South African white society and then spend the rest of his life bringing peace and reconciliation to a nation torn by the strife of apartheid. Nelson Mandela chose forgiveness. That choice molded the remainder of his life and even his death so that, as mentioned earlier, most of his former enemies became his friends and many of them genuinely loved him as a man of awesome integrity and amazing leadership ability.

I never knew Nelson Mandela except what I read (which was extensive) and what I heard on the news. But when I learned of his death earlier today I had to fight back tears. I realize I have come to love him as another “father” who taught me how to live. My life is so much better and so much more worthwhile because of his life and the way he lived it. His influence on me, who he never knew and who lived halfway around the world, was profound. I don’t think I am a great exception.

My prayer for the Mandela family and for all the people of South Africa is that they grieve well in this enormous loss—as they realize the privilege that was theirs, to know him, to love him and to follow him as leader of their great nation. I pray also that God will bless them in their grieving as they experience His marvelous peace in their hearts and on their land.

I’m Rick Blumenberg and that’s My View from Tanner Creek. 

   

Pardoned to Paradise

Two men asked Jesus for help on that barren hillside called Golgotha. One received pardon but the other received not a word. The verbal attack of the one showed the condition of the heart was more important than the actual words, because truth spoken in derision can be the worst kind of insult. 

"Aren't you the Christ?" The dying thief asked in mockery. And his attitude of scorn destroyed a request for salvation: “Save yourself....and us!" he spat. 

The insulting thief found nothing but silence from the King of Kings, while the other found words of assurance and victory. It was the attitude of the repentant thief that earned a pardon. 

The first expression of that attitude was deep conviction of sin: "Don't you fear God since you are under the same sentence?"

The repentant thief was about to stand before God, his Creator and give an account of his life. He realized in despair all he had to show was his sinfulness. The very thought of seeing his sinful life revealed in God's holy presence brought an awesome conviction of sin.

If we are to enjoy pardon, we too, must see our sin as God sees it: a reproach to His holy character, an insult to His beloved Son, and destructive to the people he loves. 

The second expression of that saving attitude was honest confession of guilt: "We are punished justly," he said, “We are getting what our deeds deserve." Like the prodigal son of whom Jesus earlier spoke, the thief came to himself. He stopped trying to blame his guilt on someone else. And that was the only way he could be rid of it.

The purpose of Jesus' death was to bring pardon but His purpose can only find fulfillment in our honest confession. Until we admit our guilt his death is wasted on us.

The repentant thief realized his Sin brought him to this place. We need to realize our sin brought Jesus, the God-Man, to this day—Crucifixion and to this place—Calvary.

He got what we deserve.

We get what he earned—if we confess our sin, ask his forgiveness and accept him as Savior!

The third expression of that attitude was a full awareness of the Holiness of Christ: "This man has done nothing wrong!"

One reason Jesus came to earth was to show us the character of God in the body of a man. He is the perfect likeness of the invisible God. But, until we recognize the holiness of Jesus, the man, we cannot imagine the holiness of God, the Creator, and we cannot experience his holiness in our own lives.

The fourth expression of the attitude that brought pardon was an expression of faith in the midst of hopelessness: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

Picture the scene: The repentant thief hung on a cross in the hour of his death. He looked beside him to Jesus and saw there a man who was beaten, wounded, and bleeding. The blood from the crown of thorns was dried on his forehead, and fresh blood from the nails dripped from his hands and ran down his arms and torso to the sword-cut in his side continuing down to mingle with blood from his nail-pierced feet and fall to the ground. Sweaty from the strain of carrying the cross; with dust from countless feet settled on his body. Chilled from the wind that blew upon Golgotha, he probably shivered violently from the cold. He did not look like a king. There was no indication he could even help himself much less anyone else. But in spite of all the evidence to the contrary this condemned man believed!

In the face of hopeless despair, he believed. He believed so much that even in his agony he groaned those never-to-be-forgotten words, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

That man was the first Christian! He was first to believe and first to receive the pardon Jesus came to bring. 

Pardon is a beautiful word to a condemned man. "Today, you will be with me in paradise!” was the word from Jesus that transported him from the agony of crucifixion to the bliss of eternal paradise! From the dirt and stench of execution to the inexpressible delight of the resurrection! From the destruction of sin to the redemption of righteousness through Jesus Christ, God's Son!

Pardon is also a beautiful concept for you and me. Almost 2,000 years ago Jesus paid the price for every one of us! Because of what God did through Christ we hear him say also to us "Today, you will be with me in paradise." We need not wait to die. Life is a paradise for all who live by faith!

I’m Rick Blumenberg…and that’s “My view from Tanner Creek”.

Preached @ 1984 Good Friday Service at Hillcrest United Methodist Church in a service planned by the Elkhart Area Ministerial Association. I was pastor of Midtown (now Adamsville Road) Church of God.

This Gospel is just as true today as it was then!