Thinking About Thinking

SCRIPTURE: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. Romans 8:1-3 NIV

THOUGHT: What’s it like up in your head? I mean really like? When you sit for a while quietly, perhaps trying to pray, or enjoying your first cup of coffee in the morning, or driving into the office, what kind of thoughts are you dealing with?

I often feel assaulted, whether by worry, some terrible memory, anxiety over our kids, or the things that are out-of-control in our culture – and because what really goes on in our minds isn’t what we often talk about out loud, I wonder if I am alone. It seems condemnation is always knocking on my mind, hoping to get in.

This morning, as the assault began, God spoke the first few words of Romans 8 to my heart, and I began to say them over again to my mind: there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus because of the law of the Spirit who gives life has set me free from the law of sin and death.

Think about it for a minute, there is a law, a decree of God Almighty, that supersedes any of his other laws, and it’s called “the law of the Spirit who gives life.” This law is freedom for us who live and move and have our being in Christ. Freedom from the law of sin, of guilt, of worry, of condemnation, of perfectionism, of unforgiveness, of fear over the future… or the past… or the present. That freedom is life – a life Jesus purchased with his own when he came in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. Would we sit around in worry or despair or mental assault any longer, treating the greatest gift of Advent as if it has no power? As if it was for someone else, but not me or you? I hope and pray not! I will keep fighting that knock on my mind, and you do too. It is for freedom that we have been set free (Gal. 5:1).

PRAYER: O God, your law of freedom, the law of the Spirit who gives life, is so precious and yet I treat it so lightly sometimes. It supersedes all those laws of yours that were good, yet powerless to do anything but condemn me. Forgive me for so often blowing past what is the greatest gift we humans have ever been given: the advent of one who would fulfill every law of yours so we could hide within his perfect sacrifice, and live, free from condemnation.