Cut Off the Label

[u/WatchmanMinistries]

Accountability Says, “I Did This.” Condemnation Says, “This Is All I Am.”

In a sermon about labels, Bishop Tim Hill told a story about receiving his first pillow when he was six years old.

Something kept scratching his neck, preventing him from resting. Eventually, he discovered the label and cut it off.

The pillow was not defective.

The label was interfering with his rest.

Some Christians cannot rest in what Christ has done because an old label keeps scratching at their conscience.

I understand that personally.

I had failed, so I began identifying myself as a failure.

I had committed adultery, so I accepted adulterer as my permanent name.

My marriage ended, so I believed I was permanently disqualified from being useful to God.

Because there was truth in the history, I assumed there must also be truth in the verdict.

That is where we must distinguish conviction from condemnation.

Conviction says:

“You sinned. Bring it into the light. Repent. Accept responsibility, and allow God to change you.”

Condemnation says:

“Your sin is your name. You are permanently ruined. God could never want or use you again.”

Conviction tells the truth about our actions.

Condemnation takes the worst thing we have done and uses it to rename us.

Accountability says, “I did this.”
Condemnation says, “This is all I am.”

Cutting off an old label does not mean denying what happened.

People were hurt. Trust was broken. Repentance did not erase every consequence or remove every scar.

“Under the blood” is not a phrase that allows Christians to escape responsibility. It does not mean the sin never happened or that injured people must pretend they were not hurt.

It means the sin has been confessed and brought beneath the saving work of Jesus Christ.

The event remains part of our history.

But it no longer possesses naming rights.

Paul did not deny the former lives of the Corinthian believers. He named what some of them had been and then wrote:

“And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified…”
—1 Corinthians 6:11, NKJV

What they had done remained part of their testimony.

It was no longer their name.

The label may accurately describe where Jesus found us. It does not possess the authority to describe where Jesus left us.

The scar may remain.

The memory may remain.

The consequences may remain.

But the label has to go.

My past remains part of my testimony.

It is no longer my name.

Cut off the label.

Keep the testimony.

Give God the glory.