Daily Affirmations - Day 7 - What Does My Lord Say? - No Condemnation

Day 7: No Condemnation

Who then is the one that condemns? No one

But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him, just as He told you’” (Mark 16:7 - emphasis added).

This message is the revelation of a love that is not turned away by our sinful changes.

Peter may have thought that he had, with his own words, broken the bond between him and his Lord (Matthew 26:69-75).

He had renounced his allegiance; was the renunciation to be accepted? He had said, ‘I am not one of them’; did Christ answer, ‘Be it so; one of them [you shall] no more be’? The message from the women’s lips settled the question, and let him feel that, though his grasp of Christ had relaxed, Christ’s grasp of him had not...

And is not that same miracle of long-enduring love presented before every one of us, as in Christ’s heart for us? True, our sin interferes with our sense of it, and modifies the form in which it must deal with us; but, however real and disastrous may be the power of our evil in troubling the communion of love between us and our Lord... never forget that our sin is utterly impotent to turn away the tide that sets to us from the heart of Christ...

Among His creatures, the race which has sinned is that which receives the most stupendous proof of the seeking divine love. Among men, the publicans and the harlots, the denying Peters and the persecuting Pauls, are they to whom the most persuasive entreaties of His love are sent, and on whom the strongest powers of His grace are brought to bear. Our sin cannot check the flow of His love.

Here, too, is the revelation of a love which singles out a sinful man by name. Christ does not deal with us in the mass, but soul by soul...

He has a clear individualising knowledge of each; each separately has a place in His mind or heart. To each He says, ‘I know you by name.’ He loves the world, because He loves every single soul with a distinct love. And His messages of blessing are as specific and individualising as the love from which they come. He speaks to each of us as truly as He singled out Peter here...

He calls to you by... name—you have a share in His love. To you the call to trust Him is addressed, and to you forgiveness, help, purity, life eternal are offered. You have sinned; that only infuses deeper tenderness into His beseeching tones... You have denied His name; that only makes Him speak yours with more persuasive invitation.

Look, then, at this one instance of a love stronger than death, mightier than sin, sending its special greeting to the denier, and learn how deep the source, how powerful the flow, how universal the sweep, of that river of the love of God, which streams to us through the channel of Christ His Son.

~ MacLaren's Expositions ~ Love's Triumph Over Sin [Minor language usage edits]

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).

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