EscapingThe Black Hole

Stephen Altrogge at The Blazing Center has posted some good stuff on "Escaping The Black Hole of Condemnation"  -Part 1 and Part 2.

I can’t believe I fell into that sin. How can God possibly forgive me? I shouldn’t even call myself a Christian. Will I ever get the victory? I’m such a miserable failure. How can God accept me?

Have you ever felt like this? Most of us have been there. The black hole of condemnation. We can feel hopeless, depressed, discouraged. We grieve over offending God. Our sin stings. And we often regret the pain we inflicted on others or consequences brought on ourselves. Sometimes we can be filled with regret for years of sin or failure.

The greater the sin, the deeper our grief can be and the deeper the hole of self-reproach. We can believe we must do penance or punish ourselves. Or that it’s wrong to have any joy or to try to remove the weight of our sorrow from our backs.

We hear Scriptures like “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Ro 8.1), yet still feel condemned. We know technically we’re accepted by God, but just can’t believe he really loves us now. We feel like if we let go of our guilt, we’re not really sorry for our sin. How do we escape the swirling vortex of condemnation?

Stephen gives us the following steps to escape condemnation:

• Know where condemnation comes from
• Focus on Jesus
• Fight to believe the gospel
• Trust God's Character
• Grieve Appropriately
• Beware Self Pity
• Give Thanks
• Get Back Up
• Trust God to Finish the Job

Good stuff, and well worth reading.