September 11 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1).

Devotional

No condemnation! What strong consolation flows from this truth to the believer in Jesus! No condemnation! That is the ground of all comfort to the suffering Christian. No condemnation! What a mighty breakwater this condition is to the rolling surge of sorrow, which otherwise might flow in upon and flood the soul! Let it be your aim to make good use of it on every occasion of suffering and trial.

God may afflict you, but he will never condemn you. Chastisements are not judgments. Corrections are not condemnations.

Because there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, you can welcome and patiently bear sickness, bereavement, and poverty. They do not forecast a coming storm. Rather, they distill a mercy-cloud floating across the azure sky of your soul in Christ.

The fiery trials that purify your faith do not have a spark in them of that "unquenchable fire" that will consume the condemned hereafter. Oh, what are crosses and the discomforts of this present world, if at last you are kept out of hell?

And oh, what are the riches and honors and comforts of this life if at last you are shut out of heaven? At the bottom of that cup of sinful pleasure which sparkles in the worldling's hand, and which he quaffs with such zest and glee, there lies eternal condemnation; the death-worm feeds at the root of all his good.

But at the bottom of this cup of sorrow, now trembling and dark in the hand of the suffering Christian, bitter and forbidding as it is, there is no condemnation. Eternal glory is at the root of all his evil.

And will you not rejoice in this? It is not only your holy duty to rejoice, but also it is your high privilege to rejoice. "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice" (Phil. 4:4). Your whole life not only ought to be, but also may be, a sweetly-tuned psalm—a continual anthem of thanksgiving and praise—pouring forth its swelling notes to the God of your salvation. Why? Because beyond the cloudy scene of your present pilgrimage there unveils the light and bliss of celestial glory, on whose portal you read as you pass within, "No Condemnation!"

Unless you either distrust or disparage this—your joyous condition and blessed hope—therefore, you must, in the gloomiest hour, and from the innermost depths of your soul, exultingly exclaim, "He who justifies me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the LORD God helps me; who will declare me guilty?" (Isa. 50:8–9).

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
my beauty are, my glorious dress;
'midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
with joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in thy great day;
for who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am
from sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

When from the dust of death I rise
to claim my mansion in the skies,
ev'n then this shall be all my plea,
Jesus hath lived, hath died, for me.

Jesus, be endless praise to thee,
whose boundless mercy hath for me—
for me a full atonement made,
an everlasting ransom paid.

O let the dead now hear thy voice;
now bid thy banished ones rejoice;
their beauty this, their glorious dress,
Jesus, thy blood and righteousness.

(Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinsendorf, 1739)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2011.