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PROGRAM D-7905
Are you all tied up in knots? These many “knots” in our lives keep us tied up and keep us from the abundant life that Jesus came to give us. There are the “have-nots”—living life focused on what we don’t have instead of being thankful for what we do have. And then the “can-nots”—where we find excuses for not doing what God has called us to do. Living under the “do-nots” is no fun—that’s living under legalism instead of basking in God’s grace. And we have the “will-nots”—those areas in our lives where we will not obey God.
There is one more “knot” that has many of us tied up—the “am-nots.” How often we focus on all our “am-nots” instead of focusing on the sufficiency of Jesus Christ! For example, when was the last time you thought or said, “I am not qualified,” “I am not good enough,” or “I am not as good as others”? Oh, how the enemy of our soul loves to keep us looking at ourselves instead of looking at Jesus.
Romans 8 assures us that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Yet we have a tendency to keep condemning ourselves—or to allow others to condemn us. God never deals with us through condemnation. He may convict us of something in our lives that he wants to change in order to conform us to the image of his Son, Jesus, but he never beats us over the head with our unworthiness—even though we are all truly unworthy.
Depending on your life experiences, you may have great difficulty believing that anyone could truly forgive you and set you free from your past, especially God. But I urge you to make this truth the centerpiece of your life: What you have confessed and forsaken is out of God’s memory, separated from you, and never to be brought up against you again.
When God sees you in Christ, he does not see your ugly past; he sees the righteousness of Jesus Christ which has been credited to your account. Furthermore, God never compares you with others; he takes you where you are, gives you hope for the future, and assures you that nothing can separate you from his love.
I hope you will, by God’s grace, get rid of the “am-nots” that you’ve harbored for far too long. Don’t believe the enemy’s lies any longer. When you hear those “am-nots” starting to invade your thoughts, just quote Romans 8:38-39:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.