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Have you ever felt condemned because someone else did not have any problems, and you were hurting? You know, they say, "Oh, God is really blessing me for my obedience and is really answering my prayers. I just got a raise, my kid just got a scholarship to a Christian University and they want to be a missionary, etc., etc. My wife just got healed instantly when the pastor prayed for her."

Then you look at your life and you think that God must not think very much of you. All you are experiencing is trouble, grief, sickness, lack, and you blame yourself. You sense your life is barren, that you have no purpose. You begin to justify your situation by thinking this is your ordained suffering, that God is punishing you for being the low down creature you are. You know you lack faith, but you hate hearing those people tell you that all you need is more faith. Sure you should be happy for that person who is being blessed, but it can make you feel like something is wrong with you.

You know you are going to Heaven when you die, but you are living in Hell before you get there. You try to study the Bible, but it seems distant and cold. All you can do is look up those Scriptures that justify your pitiful situation.

Perhaps you have attempted to believe God for blessings but it has not worked. Or perhaps you are a new believer and really don't know where to start.

God has a message for you!

He has a message that will encourage you where you are, has compassion for your present situation without condemnation, and at the same time pick you up and put you on the path to blessings, purpose and fruitfulness. The message consists of mercy for the present, for the future, vision, faith, hope, and love. It begins with God's initiatives to bring you into His presence from which all healing and victory will spring forth. It includes the promise of purpose for your life.

1. Hope and vision. "The woe and waste and tears of life belong to the interlude and not to the finale." F.B.Meyer.

2. Hope and mercy. Your problems carry in them the very raw materials God needs for your success. If you had your life together, you would not have the materials God needs to bless you, use you, and make you fruitful for His Kingdom. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3).

3. Faith. "Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live" (John 5:25). "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).

The Lord will perform those things that you are unable to perform. He is your performer. He is your advocate. He is interested in you. Abraham needed to make no new beginnings of his own. God took the initiative with him. Abraham never thought of Canaan as his goal, he just followed and responded to the call of God to go somewhere, not knowing where. Abraham was not worthy, he simply heard God when he was as good as dead, and responded in obedience (Genesis 12).

4. Love. God's love is what draws you, and His awesome presence is what keeps you. "Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?" (Romans 2:4).

In the book of Hosea God compared His people to adulterers because they had turned from Him, their husband. Then He shows us the cause and effect of their restoration. First, God freely forgives them (Israel) and the result is that they turn to Him.

Read God's heart in this passage. "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, The Holy One in your midst; And I will not come with terror" (Hosea 11:8,9).

5. Purpose. There is purpose in your afflictions. We will see how your overcoming afflictions will defeat demons and will set other people free. Just by overcoming your afflictions you will be able to sweep other people into God's Kingdom.

We also see our generation curses eradicated and our junk turned into jewels for the Kingdom of God.

God must cleanse your conscience in order to give you His abiding presence.

Jesus always meets us where we are located. He never asks us to "measure up to Him," but rather He finds ways of "coming down to us." If we are in some sort of pit, or are in someway experiencing a "shadow of death," He wants to come to our pit. If you are really hurting, then Jesus wants to start out with you at "square one." He wants you to know that you are pardoned and forgiven. You may feel like you have failed the Lord, perhaps time and time again. This feeling probably makes you feel guilty and condemned. Hebrews 10:22 states that we cannot draw near to God with a guilty conscience. Satan knows that. He knows that drawing near to God will heal you. God knows that your only chance to make it is to draw near to Him with a clean conscience. "…let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water" (Hebrews 10:22).

However, if you have failed and failed again, how can you draw near to God? You may be thinking, "God must really be tired of me by now. I just cannot measure up to Him. I keep failing Him."

You are in a vicious cycle! The more you sin and fail, the worse your conscience becomes, and the further away from God you become. The solution is to draw near to God, but you think that you just cannot. The more you feel condemned, the more you sin and continue to do things that are not pleasing to God.

Jesus' love and your experience of that love is the answer.

Jesus is waiting for you, not to condemn you, but happy to have you come to the Cross to give Him your sin. So many Christians run from God in shame and guilt when they discover sin.

God's remedy for sin is to come to the Cross, and then come to the Holy of Holies into His presence and let His character flood your character. His holiness will replace your sin. This is the only remedy. You cannot do it yourself. It is the displacement method. You cannot just empty out your sin, rather God floods you with His holiness and love and the sin must leave. Do not be discouraged if you have to do this time and time again. God is not the one who condemns, Satan is. God will take you back as many times as you come. When you stop coming is when He is grieved.

Walk out into the light of reality. Drop your self-deceit and face this sin for what it really is. Take sides with God against it. Purpose in your heart never to go back into that sin again.

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness"(I John. 1:9). Forgive means to remove. God will remove your sin like a surgeon removes a cancer, and He will put it on Jesus at the Cross.

"The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbour his anger for ever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us" (Psalms 103:8-12).

Dead men need life not the law!

If you were to find a dead person on the street you would not tell him what he did wrong, or that he could get his life back together if he would just obey some laws you had on a sheet of paper. No. He does not need condemnation or laws he needs life! That is what Jesus does for us.

We must understand that Jesus starts out with a pardon and not with an order to "shape up." We must allow Jesus to forgive us so that we may draw near to Him. His presence is the only thing that can deliver us! He wants us to be close to Him, even if we feel unworthy. God has a path of victory for you, it is the overcoming path, but there is no way you can walk it out until you and God settle the issue of the conscience. You must have a clear conscience. God passionately desires you to have that, and only He can make that possible through His wonderful forgiveness and cleansing.

God does not want to be misrepresented.

While Israel was wandering in the desert and complaining about not having water, God did not respond with anger, but Moses did. "And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, 'Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?' Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their animals drank. Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not believe Me, to hallow Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them'" (Numbers 20:10-12).

God wanted to give them mercy, but Moses, as God's representative gave them anger, judgment, and condemnation. God was so displeased with being misrepresented that He forbade Moses to go into the Promise Land. That penalty is exemplary of how God feels about this subject.

So often when we are hurting, people around us who are supposed to be representing God treat us like Moses treated the Israelites.

The Apostle Paul discovered God's mercy and grace.

Paul discovered this attribute in Jesus' personality when he could not overcome his old nature, his flesh. "For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do" (Romans 7:15).

We all need a good strong dose of the fear of God and we need to come to Him with the truth rather than with excuses. "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24). There was a custom during Paul's days in Rome where the penalty for a murderer would be to strap the dead corpse to his back until they would both be dead. Paul felt this way about himself, unable to escape the penalty of death.

Then Paul discovered the grace and mercy of God. "I thank God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin" (Romans 7:25).

Amazing grace can be realized when we see our helpless condition and the wonderful love of God who set us free and gave us His holiness. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:1,2).

The woman taken in adultery was given the power to change.

"When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, 'Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?' She said, 'No one, Lord.' And Jesus said to her, 'Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more'" (John 8:10,11).

Notice that Jesus did not tell this woman that she had broken the Law; she knew that. She was unable to break out of her cycle of adultery. Once she was forgiven, she could draw near to God in the flesh, the love of God in the person of Jesus, and she obtained the power to "go and sin no more." But without the pardon, she would have remained in the endless cycle.

Make no mistake about it, however, Jesus does not just forgive us so that we may go our own way. Forgiveness is not something He put in the cafeteria line so that we could just pick and chose as we desire. Forgiveness cost Jesus His life. He died with your sin. He cannot just pardon your sin. He must take your sin on Himself and suffer the consequences of it. When He suffers your sin, attached to that package is that fact that He purchased you with His blood. You no longer belong to yourself, but to Him.

You have been purchased with the highest price that could be paid, the very life and blood of Jesus. "For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Corinthians 6:20). If you wish to participate in the wonderful blessings of God, especially in the power of His resurrection that turns your junk into jewels, you must settle the ownership issue now. You are not expected to be perfect, but you should be perfectly submitted.

Here is a warning!

Overcoming is a lifestyle, not an emergency procedure. It requires great discipline to continually study what the blood of Jesus did for you, who you are in Christ, and what the promises are for your situation. Satan will go to great lengths to steal this message of grace from you. You must press in to the Word to keep it fresh in your heart and mind. It requires great humility for character development, taking up your cross. It requires great perseverance for spiritual warfare, pounding the Word of God at the enemy. It is a multi-vitamin to be used daily. Bible overcomers have always been a minority, probably because most people do not enjoy discipline, humility, and perseverance. Overcoming may be for the weak, but it is not for the lazy! You will learn more about this path in later chapters.

Jesus invites you to turn from your independence and sin with a reward attached to it. "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord" (Acts 3:19).

Now is the time to be honest with God and give Him those areas of your life that are not under His Lordship. He will love you freely and you will once again sense His love.