Overcoming Condemnation

I have noticed a pattern in my life where when I realize how dumb something is instead of taking my eyes off myself and putting them back on Jesus, I get int this self bashing mode where I reflect on how stupid and foolish I am. I recognize that that is not humility, it is just as self centered as prideful boasting. This devotion today really helped to remind me that it is God that should be my focus.

Not under Condemnation

Psalm 143:1–3
Hear my prayer, O LORD, give ear to my supplications! Answer me in
Thy faithfulness, in Thy righteousness! And do not enter into judgment
with Thy servant, for in Thy sight no man living is righteous. For the
enemy has persecuted my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground.
NASB


The psalmist there was struggling with a dark force that attacks almost
every one of us at some time or another, the force of condemnation. Each
of us has an enemy, an accuser, one who seeks to make us feel guilty,
unworthy, one who reminds us of our failures and our shortcomings and our
unworthiness, and if we let him go on speaking to us he’ll crush our life
down to the ground. The answer is the answer that the psalmist found. He
turned to God and he prayed. And he said, “Give ear to my supplications.
Answer me in Thy faithfulness and in Thy righteousness.”

When we are facing condemnation and a sense of unworthiness, it is
most important that we don’t listen to the enemy any longer; that we turn
to God and that we appeal to God for help. Not on the basis of our
righteousness or our faithfulness, but on the basis of God’s righteousness
and God’s faithfulness. That is the way out from condemnation. That’s the
way back into victory.

We don’t ask God to enter into judgment with us, we ask Him to answer
us on the basis of His righteousness and His faithfulness and when we do
that, we are released from that dark power of condemnation.

—Derek Prince