There are a lot of people in this world who go through a lot of stigma because of their past…

Because of what their flesh has done…

I’m talking of people who know the Lord – who are new creations in Christ…

There is a view out there that to be a new creation means that you are practically perfect – or that you don’t practically sin anymore (that people don’t see or sense sin coming out of you)…

I personally know of no one who is a new creation for which this is true – I have seen sin coming out of every person who is a new creation which I’ve come across to date – with the exception of one – who I never sensed sin around (possibly a sniff of it once but I can’t be sure)…

My point is that new creations (people who are a new creation) are not practically perfect (sin still comes out of them – not out of their new creations but out of their flesh, ‘sin which dwells in me’)…

Here’s the thing…

If you’re divorced or used to be gay or used to be a paedophile or used to be a murderer or a prostitute or bankrupt (because of corrupt dealings) or any other thing which has a stigma – you can be looked down upon by self righteous people in the ‘church’…

I have news for you…

There is no stigma on you from God…

You are a brand new creation…

Right now you are this…

Not when you’re ‘slightly better’ but right now…

Not when you stop doing ‘that thing’ (whatever that thing is that you feel if you could just stop doing then you’d be acceptable to God) but right now…

Yes, right now…

When you repented from your sins God forgave them and you are – right now – a new creation…

You died…

Your flesh is just a ghost…

It doesn’t exist to God…

It is your enemy to God (God is ‘with you’ against it for its practical removal from you – but it is not you)…

God does not treat it as you…

Here’s the thing – you’re divorced (let’s say)…

Scripture could be ‘used’ by self righteous people against you to say that Jesus says that I can’t marry you other wise I’ll be committing adultery, i.e. putting the self righteous person ‘above’ you and making you a ‘second class citizen’…

But what does scripture say…

“For you died…”

“Their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more”…

“Having forgiven all our transgressions”…

“If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come”…

Scripture says that the person who committed that divorce has died…

It (your flesh) is just a ghost…

Your new creation can’t sin…

It is permanently innocent…

This is the New Covenant…

The Law says, “Do this and you will live”…

And who has ever done it?

No one – perfectly – but one – Jesus Christ…

Scripture says that if you practice the Law perfectly but break it in just one point you are guilty of breaking it all…

So the truth is that those self righteous people who are judging and putting you down for being divorced are forgetting that under the Law they are divorced if they’re looking to their own righteousness to save them…

Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. (Romans 2:1-2 NASB)

If you’ve looked to Christ and are under His Blood and are divorced – you are a new creation – you are a virgin in the sight of God (permanently) – when He looks – at Satan’s accusation – in the books for proof that you are divorced He will say, “This person no longer exists – there is no record of them”…

You are no longer divorced…

Why?

Because you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God…

To be in Christ means to be credited with all that Christ has…

Christ is continuously perfectly righteous – this is what we are in our new creations…

Permanently perfectly righteous – we are not divorcees (still using that as the example)…

So I say, if you had a divorce (you’ve gone through all the pain – whether it was your ‘fault’ or not) – how does God view you right now?

He views you as free – He looks at you as a chaste virgin because this is what you are…

Your flesh isn’t you (it is a ghost) – it is dead…

Your new self is you…

So I say go ahead and obey the word of the Lord to get married to someone else who is a new creation if this is what you want to do…

Go ahead…

You are pure in Him…

The Law is not for righteous people…

Everything is permissible…

Yes, not everything is beneficial – follow the Spirit – but if the Spirit is leading you to marry a fellow new creation – then do this…

There is no stigma for you…

If someone tries to stigmatise you remember that if they are calling unholy something which God has called clean that this is in direct contraction to the word of God…

Peter’s vision of the sheet…

Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”  The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven. (Acts 10:13-16 NASB)

“Do not call anything impure that God has made clean”…

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:9-20 NASB emphasis added)

This is what some of you were…

We were unrighteous when we were outside of Christ…

We were washed, we were sanctified and we were justified when we came to Christ and when we were made new creations in Him…

We can’t ‘go back’ to what we were – we can’t (the butterfly can’t become a caterpillar again – it just can’t)…

It’s too late…

And so all things are lawful for us…

But we don’t use our freedom to indulge our flesh…

It’s dead and we practically don’t want to let its ghost keep haunting us (so to speak)…

It has nothing to offer us…

Nothing…

And yet we are forgiven – if we do let its ghost keep haunting us we are still forgiven – but we are meant – as the love dawns on us – to give the world – the unrighteous – a view of what it means to be a son or daughter of God living in this amazing freedom…

Don’t have to…

Want to…

We will start to want to…

If we call ourselves unclean when God has called us clean then we are disobeying the word of God…

God has called every one of His children clean – saints by calling…

If you are in Christ you are clean – permanently…

You can’t stuff up your righteousness because you looked to Him and were credited His…

Only if Christ stuffs up can your righteous standing be revoked…

And Christ will never stuff up…

He lives in the power of an Indestructible Life…

Let’s make this slightly more real – although it’s still hypothetical…

Let’s pretend I (making it personal) was a really famous preacher (not that I am) and I was highly looked up to by a whole lot of people around the world (not that I am) and that a lot of people listened to what I said…

My wife died (in this hypothetical story) and let’s say that I met a woman who knew the Lord and had married (after she knew the Lord) someone who didn’t know the Lord…

That didn’t work out well for them so they – the one who knew the Lord – then divorced this man who she’d married…

Then the Lord brought that one – who knew Him all along but whose flesh had committed all those acts through them – to repentance about these sins – they repented before the Lord…

I met them and felt on my heart to marry them – I looked at them as a virgin before the Lord in their new self – they looked at me the same way…

Their divorced spouse was still alive (that’s an important point)…

I went ahead and became engaged to them…

Quite possibly (on a number of fronts) there would be a huge uproar from self righteous people quoting Jesus’ words to the Pharisees that anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery (or that a woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives)…

Telling me that if I don’t break off the engagement that I’ll be committing adultery (marrying another mans’ wife)…

What would I say to them?

I would quote the words of Jesus to Peter,

“Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” (Acts 10:15b NASB)

I am clean because I looked to Jesus’ Blood to cleanse me and release me from my sins…

My fiancé (in this hypothetical story) is clean because she did the same…

We are clean, we are not under the Law, which is what Jesus was preaching to the Pharisees because we – our fleshes – died and the Law only has jurisdiction over a man as long as he lives – neither of us are alive so we are no longer under the Law’s jurisdiction – so that indictment from Jesus – spoken to the proud and self righteous Pharisees – no longer applies to us…

From my fiancés divorced spouse’s perspective he married a ghost…

Her new creation didn’t marry him – it was her flesh which married him…

Her flesh is dead…

If the books were to be opened and he was to stand before God on the great day and say, “But God, Andrew married my divorced spouse while I was still alive, this is against Your Law!” God would open the books and look for a record of my fiancé ever being married to that man and He would find none, for her sins and lawless acts have all been blotted out, remembered no more, “I have no memory of that ever occurring – there is no record of it – or of her”, He would say and my fiancés divorced spouse would be speechless before Him…

Do you see the Power of the New Creation?

Do you see the Power of the New Covenant?

Do you see the Power of God’s Forgiveness?

Do you?

I am willing to do this – to take on those who have been under stigma from the religious spirit…

I am willing to be the ‘friend of sinners’ as Jesus was…

There is no shame for a son or daughter of the Living God…

No shame…

Old things have past away, all things have been made new…

I have prayed and asked the Lord to give me the ones who are the most ‘messed up’ but are coming to Him – those who will be the most ‘outcast’ new creations – I have prayed that He will give me those and that I will be able – as a close friend of mine has said – to ‘love them to life’…

This is my prayer…

I do not feel welcome with self righteous people – but I love ‘sinners’ who know what they were and aren’t trying to hide it but have accepted by faith His pronouncement of “Righteous” over their lives and are living it – not trying to get better but as His Spirit speaks truth to their heart – naturally living that truth which He reveals and becoming more and more and more a demonstration of His Likeness in this world…

You are either completely pure or you are completely evil…

There is no in between…

If you’ve ever sinned once – any sin at all – you are completely evil…

As soon as you look to your Saviour – Your Propitiation – Your Blood Sacrifice – Jesus Christ – and believe on His Sacrifice – trust Him – you become completely pure and always will be – it is past tense…

And He will never mention your sin to you again – holding it over you as a stigma – as shame…

And so neither should we to our fellow brothers and sisters…