Notes of Readings by F. W. G.: Romans 8

Chapter 8:1. " There is no condemnation," etc. I was looking for myself in the wrong direction, I now turn to Christ as what God sees me to be. There is nothing in Him that God can disapprove.
Verse 2. " The law of the Spirit of life hath set me free from the law of sin and death." The power of the Spirit putting me consciously in Christ enables me to turn away from myself as experience would show it me. God has put the seal of condemnation upon all that we were looking at, " God sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, to condemn sin in the flesh."
The law, occupying me with myself, is weak through the opposition of the flesh which it finds there. The law commands me to love God, but I cannot love because I ought. God show's me love in Christ, and produces love in me by it. He sets me in all the fullness of divine favor, as what will turn my heart to Him and occupy me with Himself. Thus it is faith that purifies the heart; faith sanctifies, "faith working by love." There is nothing grievous in serving one that I delight in.
Verse 3. Is the defect in us or in the law? Wickedness is in us, but there is defect in the law, in this way: it not merely gives us no power, but actually gives power to sin against us. Of course it is not defective in what God aims at by it.
Verse 4. " Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Up to this it has been one " I " against another; now, when we come to deliverance, it is not the new nature in opposition to the old, but the Spirit of God, a very different thing practically. " Power is of God." The source of strength is in another, not yourself, and yet in you, giving you your place in weakness, yet with a strength that never fails. A Christian who is really strong does not feel strength, but weakness, and has to reckon upon God for every step of the way. Thus we have that to depend on which is more than sufficient for all that can come. If it were a stock of strength in myself I should have to ask if it was equal to the difficulties.
People have an idea as to Christians that they could not do this or that that is wrong; but in Scripture you will find Christians doing what was not even named among the, Gentiles (1 Cor. 5). Why have we these warnings? To prevent us thinking that we stand, for if we " think we stand we must take heed lest we fall." The devil likes very well to get Christ out of His place before our eyes, and put a strong or holy self into it. If the Spirit of God occupies us with ourselves, it is to show us how unlike Him we are, and how we need Him. Again, in the progress people talk about spirituality, they want not merely to make progress, but conscious progress; they want to find satisfaction in it. The fact is, if I am making real progress I find T lose the measure to make it by. For instance, if I measure a living plant by putting a dead stick by its side, I can measure its growth just because the stick is dead; but if I put a living stick instead, and it grows, I have lost my measure. So, if I am measuring myself by Christ and am growing in the knowledge of Him, as he grows in my eyes I lose the measure of my growth.