Potential AND Limitations

Romans 8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.  3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. NASB

It’s a sad truth that many Christians have looked at God’s acceptance of their apology as little more than a release from guilt.  There is a difference between knowing you’re forgiven and “no condemnation.”  It’s the difference John Piper points out in this quote: “our apprenticeship to Jesus is living into both our potential and our limitations.”

Even forgiven believers struggle to accept the potential God has created in them because there are obvious limitations that condemn us; the ”shoulds.”  The “Shoulds” are “the law of sin and of death” that “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” has overcome.   We have incorrectly separated our potential from our limitations rather than celebrating that God has a plan to weave a life for us that includes potential AND  limitations.

Nothing is more powerful than the realization that careless. broken and sinful people can be forgiven AND that Jesus has a plan to redeem our potential AND limitations as part of the perfect life He’s creating for us right here and now.  Can you believe that?  It’s true!

Read what the Apostle Paul wrote in Second Corinthians 12:10 “For when I am weak, then I am strong…”  Click the image to enlarge it. It’s a visual object lesson.   God has lined up those secured vertical strands of His promises to be like the years of our life.  Our choices sometimes fall under the promises and sometimes skip right over the top of them.  The Lord has chosen to weave those “+” and “-“ choices of our life into a fabric that completes His life in us.  Potential AND limitations woven together “so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit;” confident that we are part of His perfect design.  “Therefore there is now no condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus.”