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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.
- Matthew 7:1
- Judge not, that ye be not judged.
- Luke 6:37
- Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
- John 7:24
- Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
If I am in the Spirit
or walking after the Spirit,
I neither condemn others nor receive condemnation for myself.
But if I am in the flesh
or walking after the flesh,
I judge and condemn; and in doing so, I bring that judgment and condemnation back upon myself.
Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
This is true in every area of my life. I judge something according to the appearance.
I judge my earthly father to have arthritis because it appears to me that he has. He has judged himself to have it, and I have accepted his judgment. In so doing, I make arthritis a reality for myself and thereby give it permission to come upon me. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
I have put into operation an immutable law of God.
Now this could send me into despair and cause me to start judging, condemning, and accusing myself for being so ignorant (which is all that sin
is) as to make this judgment about my father which has brought arthritis upon myself. First, I accused my father of having arthritis; now I am accusing myself for accusing him. And we all know what the accuser
is (Revelation 12:10); it is the devil, the father of all lies (John 8:44).
In the condemning and accusing of myself, I continue to bring upon myself that which I don’t want —namely, arthritis. I see no way out of my predicament.
But then I remember that I was not in Christ
(the place of no condemnation
) when I made my judgment; had I been in Christ
where arthritis is not a reality (but only a belief), I could have made no such judgment. This doesn’t mean I wasn’t saved
in the orthodox sense of that word. It means that I was operating out of the human consciousness, not out of a Christ consciousness.
The solution is simple. I must ascend out of the place of condemnation (human consciousness) into the place of no condemnation (in Christ
or in the Christ consciousness). In the Bible this is called repentance
–or changing the location of my thinking [Strong 3340: to think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider (morally, feel compunction) —repent].
We can see this so very clearly in the record of the woman caught in adultery. While not in the Christ consciousness, she had been engaged in an activity (adultery), for which she accused and condemned herself (Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth
—(Romans 14:22)). This condemnation of herself was out-pictured in the world around her to the extent that her accusers were on the point of stoning her to death (John 8:3-5).
This is always the case. Whatever is in my consciousness (good, bad, or indifferent) is out-pictured in the world around me. If I believe that I have arthritis, my family, friends and doctor’s reports will all sustain me in this belief. They all become my accusers
and, if not counteracted, will eventually stone
me to death.
Let’s look again at the woman caught in adultery —whom we will assume to be Mary Magdalene. Whether she is or not is of no consequence. The important thing is to see the lesson of the parable. We see that her escape from her accusers came when she ran into the Christ consciousness where there was no condemnation (Neither do I condemn thee
— John 8:11). In that place there were no accusers; no man was condemning her (v 10). The text reads, When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman.
Think of it! The Christ does not see our accusers; He sees only the perfect, beloved child of God. And when we enter into the Christ consciousness, that is all we can see too —a perfect manifestation that cannot be accused or condemned.
And when there are no accusers on the inside, there are none on the outside. When we look for them, we find that they have disappeared. For it was our self condemnation which was bringing them into our line of vision. What we find true about ourselves is what others find true about us.
Before we leave this discussion, we should note Jesus’ last words to this woman, Go, and sin no more
(John 8:11). We have already said that sin
is merely ignorance; and ignorance is the reason for our destruction:
Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
The knowledge
that Jesus is imparting to this woman is that she cannot go back into adultery (doing something for which she condemned herself) without the same results she had before. We are all very mistaken if we think that we can operate in the human consciousness and receive the results of operating in the Christ consciousness. If she remained in the Christ consciousness that freed her from condemnation, she would not be trying to get from adulterous behavior that which was already hers (most likely love). If she knew that nothing could separate her from the love of God (Romans 8:39), she wouldn’t be looking for love from man.
Likewise, if I remain in the Christ consciousness, I will stop judging anyone for any reason —and thereby stop that judgment from coming upon myself. I will begin to know my father and everyone else as the perfect, complete expressions of God that they are and stop ascribing to them all sorts of diseases and problems. I will stop judging by the appearances and begin to have righteous judgment. I will see them as the righteousness of God in Christ and refrain from any other judgment, no matter how they judge themselves or how others judge them. I will not agree with any of those judgments because I will know that those accusations can come only from the accuser, that is, the devil, the father of all lies.
Note: This contemplation was written in October, 2012, when I was experiencing severe pain and lack of motion in my left hip. It was during pecan season, and I was unable to either bend over or crawl on the ground as I had in years past. I had to use what we call a pecan picker-upper
(a device on the end of a stick) to pick up every pecan. Many other simple activities such as picking my leg up in the shower or sitting down in a chair became very painful. As I was meditating on this state of affairs and considering consulting a doctor, what I have written above was revealed to me. It was several months later that I began to notice freedom of movement; and gradually it was as if it never happened. I rejoice that God is continually affirming everything that I am writing.
Note: In 2015 I injured myself in a fall and consulted an orthopedic surgeon who told me that I would need a hip replacement very soon. It is now May, 2017, and I am exercising about an hour a day on an elliptical machine and a treadmill with no pain.