Beauty for ashes: receiving emotional healing by Joyce Meyer

"now," if God has told you to act.
    It is not good to spend our time running from problems. We need to slow down, discern what is vital, accept responsibility for our actions, and if need be simply say, "I was wrong, and I am sorry." We must not let procrastination rob us of God's blessings.
    If we want to enjoy God's best for our lives, we must stop making excuses, stop blaming others, and stop being too busy to do what God says to do. He may tell us to give, help, pray, forgive, apologize, or something else. But whatever it may be, we need to learn to be "now people" who hear God and act quickly when He speaks to us.
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    Redeemed and Made RighteousJesus Christ gave His life that we might have righteousness-or as Ilike to write it, Righteousness. Righteousness is meant for all who believe"withpersonal trustandconfident reliance on Jesus Christ (the Messiah)" (Romans 3:22).
    Speaking of Jesus, Peter wrote, "He personally bore our sins in His [own] body on the tree [as on an altar and offered Himself on it], that we might die (cease to exist) to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24).
    We were created by God to feel right and good about ourselves. But the devil wants all of us to feel wrong about ourselves; he wants us to feel shame, guilt, and condemnation. Because of the presence of sin in the world, and the sin nature that came upon us through the fall of mankind, we cannot do everything right.
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    To resist the devil's temptation to live in constant regret instead of continual victory, we must know and understand the truth of God's Word. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, He imparts or givesto usthe gift of righteousness, andby faith,we are made right with God. We are not made right with God because of our own perfection or good works; we are considered righteous because of our trust in Jesus Christ.In 2 Corinthians 5:21 the apostle Paul tells us what God did for us: "For our sake He made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that inandthrough Him we might become [endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of] the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness]."
    God sent Jesus to redeem us (that is, to buy us back from the devil to whom we had sold ourselves as slaves to sin), to restore us (to make us as we were supposed to be in the beginning). We were created and redeemed by God for righteousness, not shame, guilt, and condemnation.
    No Condemnation in Christ
    If we read and understand the Word of God, we can be set free from wrong thinking about ourselves. Paul wrote in Romans 8:1: "THEREFORE, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus,who live and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit."
    Of course, if we would follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, we would never do anything wrong, so guilt would have no place to take root in us. However, since we are human, none of us is incapable of making a mistake. As our Lord pointed out, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41 kjv).
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    We cannot perform perfectly, even though we would like to, but we can live free from guilt by walking in the Spirit. The Lord promises to lead us through life, if we listen to Him and obey Him: "Listen toandobey My voice, and I will be your God and you will be My people; andwalk in the whole way that I command you,that it may be well with you" (Jeremiah 7:23, emphasis mine).We sin when we stop doing what the Holy Spirit guides us to do. Condemnation and guilt feelings come as a result of that sin, because the devil sees an opening and immediately moves to rob us of our confidence in God's grace. If we ever hope to live without guilt, we must deal with the temptation to sin as soon as we are aware of it.
    If you do give into temptation or fall into sin, instead of trying to restore yourself