Church of Pensacola
Church of Pensacola

Teaching about righteousness

Sinner or saint?

 

 THE SINNER'S CREED

 

(To be taken with lots of sugar and honey with one pure double dose of the Athenasian Creed)

 

 

I call this 'the "Sinner's Creed"' that so many have swallowed hook, line and sinker. This is a small satirical expose of the sinful ear tickling false teachers that teach that:

 

"We are all sinners, and no sir, we are not like that Pharisee who thinks he is so righteous, nope, we glory in our shame, we know we are great sinners, but thank God Jesus will never be unemployed because He came to save sinners, and as long as we can keep indulging in our most juicy secret sins at the expense of His holy blood, we are the real Christians, we who admit what great sinners we are.

 

Nope, we don't pray long prayers or fast to be seen of men, in fact, we are so naked and poor and blind we don't pray much at all, and only rarely fast if we feel we have to or to try to establish that we are really Christians.

 

We know we couldn't earn our salvation with any righteous deeds of the flesh, so we don't live a holy righteous life at all, that would be "WORKS!" (ugh!). Nope, Jesus said, "it is finished" and we let Jesus do everything.

 

Oh, yeah, I haven't quit the lusting and fantasizing yet because the Lord hasn't taken it away yet, or the lying, but I confess my sins every night! I believe that faith is convincing myself that I am 'saved' despite all the obvious evidence to the contrary. Grace alone!!

 

Yes, I am like David who committed adultery and murder, and like Paul, who said he was the chief of sinners who was so wretched that he wasn't able to do the good he knew he should but kept doing the evil he knew he shouldn't! I am in pretty good company!!

 

Why, everybody's doing it, and are you saying that you have no sin?!!!  Not me, I've got lots of sin, it keeps me this humble!! I'm like the guy who beats his chest and says, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner", and I go away justified until I sin again, then I just do it again and again, getting more righteous every time I count on Jesus' blood and grace!! How convenient!! This grace thing is so wonderful, "We're not perfect, just forgiven", "God's not finished with me", "I'm a work in progress".

 

Jesus didn't sin because He was God, yeah, that's it, Jesus is literally God, you know, don't forget the Catholic trinity doctrine!! Yep, we are all sinners you know, we all agree, lots of us, that we are only human and no one's perfect. Gotta keep sinning, that's our motto, I'm no saint ya know.

 

Those of us who profess Christ can't lose our salvation, that's the false hope we have bought and are selling to others (cheap!) and we're sticking to it. There are a very great lots of us, as you can imagine, very popular in these last days with the apostates and reprobates who refuse to even consider repenting and giving up our sins, no way, we are all going to Heaven you know, really, we all agree! We are trusting in Jesus while we keep sinning, His blood has us 'covered'!"

 

The Bible clearly indicates in many places, that there are sinners and that there are those who are truly righteous in God's eyes, who do not keep deliberately sinning (sins that lead to death as outlined in the Bible).

 

For one small example, the Bible says, "...when we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

(that clearly indicates to the lover of truth that Christians should not still be sinners!!)

 

Yet the sad truth is that most of those who consider themselves to be among the "us" in this portion of scripture will actually gladly admit that they are still sinners now, in the false confidence that so many corrupted sinful preachers teach that all people are still sinners, and must keep sinning, and that none can actually stop sinning are be truly righteous in their life and deeds today, that only Jesus is truly righteous! They don't even notice that they are not part of the "saints", the "holy ones" to whom the promises of the Bible apply, and they never seem to even consider truly repenting from their own favorite sins and seeking God to know Him and the real Lord Jesus so they can live a truly godly and righteous and holy life pleasing to Him! 


It is true that if we confess our old self and sinful nature to be us, then so be it unto you according to your faith. If we will exercise our faith in Jesus and in our union with Him through baptism in His name, and confess that we are new creatures in Christ, crucified to this world and it to us, dead to sin, alive to God, and become partakers of His divine nature through appropriating these very great and precious promises, then we can be that new self which is created to be LIKE GOD IN TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS (Ephesians).


It is true that God initiates our salvation, we do not earn our salvation by good deeds or even by repenting, we stop sinning after we hear and believe, but so many keep mistaking salvation and being saved with being born again. To as many as received, Him, even to those who believed on His name He gave the power to become sons of God. We better all fear God and listen and repent and live it or lose it, and be prepared if you continue in your sins to lose much more than any real or imagined rewards. Whoever doesn't learn to listen with obedient faith will finally lose what little they had, even what they imagined they had, and it would have been better to have never known the way of righteousness than to have departed from the Lord's sacred command.


If we have to daily crucify our sin, or daily die to sin, as many insist, then that necessitates that we must come back alive to sin daily, which so many have no trouble doing because they are not really experiencing being dead with Christ and alive again with Christ. It is not a matter of making sure we have repented from every sin and that maybe we have missed one, the Bible says what counts is a new creation. Jesus said that WHOEVER SINS IS A SLAVE TO SIN, AND THE SLAVE HAS NO PERMANENT PLACE IN THE FAMILY, BUT A SON LIVES FOREVER. Keep playing with sin if you insist, but be prepared to reap exactly what you have planted, the wages of sin is death, even for the 'believer'. You cannot actively believe, not the Bible word 'believe', while you are deliberately sinning. They are mutually exclusive terms.


Although many foolishly and to their eternal destruction twist the meanings of Romans chapter 7, it is a very real struggle we go through as we seek to be justified in Christ by our faith. We must learn the lessons of Rom ch 6 and 8 to overcome. James, why would Jesus tell us to go and sin no more if it isn't possible, or God's will? Why does 1 Jn 3:7-10 even tell us that this is how we can discern between who is a real Christian and who is not, whether they stop sinning or not? Why does our Apostle Paul, by the Spirit write to us: "COME TO YOUR SENSES AND STOP SINNING!" 1 Cor 15:34


I sinned off and on with horrible consequences for many years before I read and responded to God in faith concerning 1 Pt 4:1, 2 "Since Christ suffered physically, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because WHOEVER SUFFERS PHYSICALLY IS FINISHED WITH SIN, AND SPENDS THE REST OF HIS LIFE, not for human desires, but rather FOR THE WILL OF GOD." !!!!! I realized that 1 Peter 4 & 5 explain this process. It goes on to say that we have spent enough time foolishly wasting our lives playing with the very temporary pleasures and laziness of sin, warning us of the very real and very soon coming of the terrible Judgment Day, and then teaches us that we must share in Christ's sufferings as real Christians. "The righteous are barely saved, where does that leave the ungodly and the sinner?" (they don't make it!) Then it tells us to be submissive to our elders and to clothe ourselves with humility. Jesus humbled Himself and OBEYED GOD, and Paul told us in light of this that we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And we are told clearly to "MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO MAKE YOUR OWN CALLING AND ELECTION SURE."!!!! 

 

How can folks keep ignoring the clear truth? "You err because you don't know the scriptures..."

 

This is quite different from this one time salvation that many have believed in, where you get 'saved' once and for all and now you cannot lose it, only rewards! No fear and trembling in that! God does it all, we can't obey God and keep from sinning, we must sin! Continuing in 1 Pt.ch 4, then finally, Peter, a witness to the Lord's horrible agonies and death, tells us that this humbling ourselves in daily obedience will cause us to suffer, but that God will then strengthen us and take us to the next level of becoming like Christ, from strength to strength, grace to grace, from one degree of His glory to the next, being transformed NOW into His likeness with ever increasing glory of the Holy Spirit. "...Resist him, standing firm in the faith, knowing that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing THE SAME SUFFERINGS. And then God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, AFTER YOU HAVE SUFFERED A LITTLE WHILE, will Himself make you strong, firm and steadfast."


So we can see that UNLESS WE LEARN TO SHARE IN CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS, WITH MUCH PRAYING AND YES, FASTING!!!, AND BY TURNING OFF THE TV AND MOVIES THAT FILL OUR HEARTS WITH EVIL AND LUST AND WICKEDNESS, AND WITHOUT MAKING A STAND FOR JESUS WITH THE FEMALES, FRIENDS AND FAMILY IN OUR LIVES, AND AT WORK, WE WILL NOT OVEROME! God's grace is sufficient, let us prepare our minds for action and get busy, never lacking in the zeal and spiritual fervor of the Lord.


There is a very great danger in the common belief and very popular teaching that Paul was describing his own give and take battle with sin in Romans ch 7 while he was an apostle of the Lord Jesus. That is a great lie from the Devil. Paul said that he had lived in good conscience up till a late point in his life, and he said, "you yourselves know how holy and righteously we lived among you..." He was not a sinner at all, and taught completely otherwise. We are not talking about some kind of absolute sinless perfection, but saints are not sinners, and sinners are not saints. The sinners don't make it, so repent and reckon yourself dead indeed unto sin once and for all, and as Paul said, "Stop sinning!" (1 Cor 15:34)  Those who think that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" still to this day can use their misunderstanding to comfort themselves after they have sinned again.


I do thank God that when I was still regularly sinning that the Lord remained faithful and didn't give me the final boot I deserved. I still was cut off in my fellowship with God, I reaped what I sowed, and yet God is restoring the 'year of the cankerworm' so to speak! It wasn't without some major fasting and praying and going back around the mountain to re learn those lessons I didn't want to learn. Yet I am finding that the Lord's yoke is not too hard and that His burden is not too heavy, that His commands are not too burdensome or grievious. And I am certainly learning the Father knows best and really loves us. I died to the law and I died to sin by my union with Christ through baptism into him and his death to the law and sin.


I learned to actually do something that seemed silly: to believe what the Lord was telling me in the Bible and to do what the bible says to do even when my experience did not match God's word. When I got to the place in Romans ch 6:1 where it says:..YOU DIED with Christ when you were buried with Him in baptism, I FINALLY REALLY BELIEVED IT, BEFORE I WAS ACTUALLY LIVING IT! Then when it said, 'THEREFORE RECKON YOURSELVES TO BE DEAD INDEED UNTO SIN AND ALIVE TO GOD IN CHRIST, I actually was silly enough to do that too. "I believed and therefore I spoke" (2 Cor 4:13). I said many of God's promises outloud, many times, like "I AM DEAD INDEED TO SIN AND ALIVE TO GOD IN CHRIST, I AM A NEW CREATION IN CHRIST, SIN SHALL NOT HAVE DOMINION OVER ME FOR I AM NOT UNDER THE LAW BUT I AM UNDER GOD'S GRACE." Well, it didn't happen immediately, but it was another building block established in my life. When I learned to pray outloud regularly, according to God's will as recorded in the New Testament, and to fast on just water seeking God till it hurt, He finally taught me to overcome by the grace of God, God's Word works!!


When I reckoned myself dead with Christ and turned off the TV for good, I was eventually thereafter able to get my faith to work right and finally to obey and to live sexually pure. I learned to stay away from the wrong people and not to be a 'wrong people' myself. "Since Christ suffered physically, arm yourselves with the same attitude, becausee WHOEVER SUFFERS PHYSICALLY IS FINISHED WITH SIN and spends the rest of his time on earth...for the will of God." 1 Pt 4:1,2 That just said we can be finished with sin and spend the rest of our lives doing God's will. Look it up, I didn't make it up!! It is time to fast and pray and to overcome now, before the huge hurricane that is coming hits


Why would the Bible say, "stop sinning" (1 Cor 15:34) to us Christians if we could not possibly stop sinning? And why does the Bible actually tell us that we can tell if somone is a real Christian or not by whether they keep sinning or not (1 Jn 3:7,8). That is one of the real tests of orthodoxy in the Bible, not whether someone believes in the trinity or that Jesus is literally God! "Whoever is born of God does not continue to sin. Whoever continues to sin is of the Devil, for the Devil has been sinning from the beginning. This is how we know who the children of the Devil are and who the children of God are." Jesus would be unrighteous if He told us to do something impossible!


We should only say we are not sinners if we are not willfully sinning each day. Remember, we are not talking about sins that lead to death. Deliberately doing what your conscience knows is wrong. When you are truly led by the Spirit you are not under the law of sin and death. You find the freedom to actually obey the Lord every time, and it snowballs, and we become slaves to obedience which leads to being slaves of righteousness which leads to holiness which results in eternal life. "But thanks be to God that although you used to be slaves to sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you. Being then made FREE FROM SIN, YOU BECAME THE SLAVES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS...leading to holiness, and the result is eternal life." Rom 6:17


When we are being snatched out of the fire of loving this world and living in sin, thinking we are really real believers with eternal life, it often doesn't feel like love from those who are doing the snatching (Jude 23), until we really repent and are safe and then see what is coming on those who are still under the wrath of God. THEN we recognize the love of the snatcher!


We confess our sins and God forgives us. But sad to say I got pretty good at that, and then I had to recognize that I was insulting the Spirit of Grace and treating the blood of Jesus as an unholy thing when I kept sinning. I realized I had become a slave to sin. As it says, "If anyone escapes the corruption that is in the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and is again entangled and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them to have never known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to have turned their back on the sacred command that was passed on to them..." I read in Psalms: "WITH YOU THERE IS FORGIVENESS, THEREFORE YOU ARE FEARED." I finally feared to keep on confessing the same sins that I knew the scriptures well enough to know that Jesus died on the cross to save me from.

 

Jesus said, "Go and sin no more!" And Jesus also said, to his disciples, "BE PERFECT EVEN AS YOUR FATHER IN HEAVEN IS PERFECT."  Now that's a heavy rap! Jesus could never command something that is impossible, because that would make him unrighteous. So therefore there must be some kind of "perfection" that God is commending us, even commanding us to aim for, even as Paul wrote by the Spirit, "Aim for perfection."  Now we know that this cannot be some kind of absolute perfection, that will not come until Christ returns, and we are all perfected together. But the bible says that we must be "perfecting holiness out of reverence for God." 2 Cor 6:1  Jesus said that all things are possible to him who believes. He said, "So be it to you according to your faith." He also said, "Nothing shall be impossible to you". The bible teaches us that "God's grace is sufficient for us", so let us aim for the kind of completion, maturity and perfection that is possible with continuing in the faith and by the working of God's grace in us to will and to do according to His good pleasure. If we sin, then we should admit and confess it properly, to God (and to men when the Spirit leads), and get back up and overcome by God's grace.

We can go and sin no more. These things were written that we would not sin. Yes, thank God IF we sin, not WHEN we inevitably sin, but "if" we sin, we do have an advocate in the Lord Jesus. But, you cannot aspire to daily repentance unless you plan to keep sinning daily!

 

It says in Rom ch 6 that Christ died to sin once and for all. Reckon yourself, therefore, to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus...Thanks be to God that although you used to be slaves to sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of teaching that was delivered to you. Being then made free from sin you became slaves to righteousness...leading to holiness and the result is eternal life. Come to your senses and stop sinning..." 1 Cor 15:34 And it says, "Whoever continues to sin is of the Devil, for the Devil has been sinning from the beginning. This is how we know who the children of God are and who are the children of the Devil." 1 Jn 3:4-10


And please don't tell me you believe that "There is none righteous, no not one" still applies today! That is a lie that we cannot stop sinning. You are not listening to the Word of God. "Stop sinning" 1 Cor 15:34, "Go and sin no more" Jesus said, "Stop sinning lest something worse come upon you." The Lord would never tell us to do something that was impossible, that would be unrighteous! Although that verse in 1 Jn is almost universally misunderstood, I will try anyway: If you will notice the context, 1 Jn ch 1 is about those preaching the gospel: "...this we proclaim... vs 1, "and we proclaim to you..." vs 2, "we proclaim to you..." vs 3, "this is the message...:" vs 5, and then it deals with people who respond wrongly to this message:... "if we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie..." And then: "If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves." (anyone claiming to be without sin does not realize that sin dwells in our flesh, but remember, we do not have to live according to the flesh anymore).


This is talking about people who claim they don't need to repent and be forgiven of their sins, they say that they have no sin. IT CERTAINLY DOES NOT NEGATE THE REST OF THE BIBLE'S TEACHING THAT GOD'S GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR US WHO KEEP ON BELIEVING TO STOP DELIBERATELY SINNING SINS THAT LEAD TO DEATH. IF we sin, not when we inevitably sin, we have an advocate, thank God for Jesus.

Some think that verses like this, in First John, are an excuse to keep sinning. Jesus said that whoever sins is a slave of sin, and the slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son abides forever. The Bible says in 1 Jn 3:7,8 that whoever is born of God does not (continue to) sin, yet the child of the Devil keeps on sinning. It even says that this is the distinguishing mark of both, that this is how we can know who the real children of God are and who are children of the Devil. I realized when I was still sinning that the scripture cannot be broken, and when I read this in 1 Jn 3 I just said to God something like: (even though I knew that I had been born again and had received the gift of the Holy Spirit and I still believed, I mean I really "believed" as much as any sinner could) "Dear God, I must have gone back to being a child of the Devil, because I am still a slave to lust..." Well, I cried out to Him for deliverance, and through His grace helping me to keep seeking Him, praying alot, fasting alot, and turning off the worldly TV shows and movies, He heard my cries and answered me. I learned to speak my faith: I am dead to sin and alive to God, I am in Christ, a new creature in union with Him, sin shall not have dominion over me because I am not under law but grace, Jesus is the Son of God and I overcome the world in Him! God's word works when we devote ourselves to prayer and get ready to share in Christ's sufferings. You wont make it in these last days if you never fast on water and learn how to pray outloud according to a good understanding of the New Testament in your heart.


Obeying Christ is something practical, it is not too hard. God is not expecting some kind of immediate absolute perfect obedience, even though we can obey God as soon as we believe the Good News. This is why He has given us the freedom of His grace in Christ, but when we recognize that we have truly died with Christ, we find that we have truly died to the Law of sin and death, and now walk in the new way of the Spirit, where we do not sin. You cannot justify a completely unbiblical doctrine of daily repentance, because daily repentance does necessitate daily sinning, or there would be no need for daily repentance. Only sinners who are on the road to destruction think that Christ's righteousness KEEPS COVERING THEIR UNRIGHTEOUS LIFESTYLES of continuing to deliberately sin after they have received the knowledge of the truth. They have banded together in the last days to agree that continuing to sin is the normal Christian experience and is according to God's expectations. They insist that this is the real way to believe in Jesus and their not trying to stop sinning proves that they have their hope in His righteousness and not their own works of righteousness. Yet real believers who are sons of God learned that Christ is our only righteousness and wisdom and life and holiness, and have gone on to appropriate Christ's righteousness as their own, learning that only he who does what is right consistently is a child of God, whoever continues to sin and then keeps trying to repent, like Esau, who fell for sexual immoraltiy, the ol okee doke, and then could not find genuine repentance later, even though he sought it with tears.


We saints daily acknowledge our great need for God and our Lord Jesus, especially during the quality time we spend with Him in praying for what we need. "You have not because you ask not." It seems that so many people in these last days imply that God could not possibly require people actually stop sinning, since their slavery to their favorite sins seems to them to show that this would be quite impossible, and therefore the scriptures cannot possibly mean what they say, which is not true.

 

Jesus did not tell us to do what is impossible or too hard. He clearly said that His yoke is not too hard and His burden is not too heavy. Let us come to Him to know Him and we will see this to be true. The Bible says, "And His commands are not too burdensome", and it is true. In fact, this was the only time I ever argued with the Lord verbally. I said something like, "I know I am wrong, but it sure seems like your yoke and burden and commandments are too hard." Later I learned that "The way of the transgressor is hard". Give the devil an inch and he'll become your ruler again. If we become entangled in and overcome by the things we were supposed to be reckoning ourselves dead to and being obedient to flee from, so as not to give the devil a foothold, then we will end up worse off than at the beginning.

Yes it would have been better for us to never to have known the way of righteousness than to have fallen for the deceptions of sin, and to have believed the last days ear tickling warped teachings that accomodate "just a normal amount of sin, after all we are only human, we are all sinners, don't worry Jesus righteousness is what we are trusting in, not ourselves".


I have been born again since 1975 and received the gift of the Holy Spirit right afterward. But I backslid quite a few times until I learned who the real Jesus is and how to speak my faith, to identify with Christ, to fast and pray earnestly in order to finally overcome, thank God for Jesus and for His grace. It seems every sinner loves to tout the perfect obedience of Christ to cover over their lack of obedience, as if Christ's obedience automatically makes up for their lack. We are already in full agreement that only Christ and His perfect obedience is acceptable to God the Father in satisfying God's righteous demands for our redemption and salvation. I was talking about OUR actions here as we seek to be completed in Christ and as we accomodate Christ being formed in us (Christ in you, the hope of glory).

The Bible says that Jesus has become the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him (Heb 5:9?). I don't believe that this obedience the Bible is talking about is dependant upon being an absolutely perfect sinless obedience from the beginning, and that is just one of the great blessings of God's grace toward us. Not just by Jesus' righeous life (for if that were the only criteria everyone would automatically be saved, because it says that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world), but (by God's grace working in us through our exercising our faith) my faith in Jesus, as I learn to obey Him, causes me to learn to obey the leadings of the Spirit each day and night.


My point that I didn't think that God expects some kind of immediate IMPRACTICAL ABSOLUTE obedience on our part means I was saying that I didn't believe that it was some kind of immediate ABSOLUTE sinlessness in this life where we will never again raise our voice too much at our wife or children, or where we will always every time do the good we know to do like putting things back after we have used them, etc., where we have an consistent absolute righteousness in total perfection. But God's idea of "perfection" can be attained by us in this life by His grace through our union with Jesus Christ, according to the bible, or God would not command us to be perfect nor to aim for perfection. While God has made Jesus to be our righeousness, now that we have been justified by our faith, there is still the issue of justice and a matter of OUR righteousness. I know that scares every sinner, but Jesus' righteousness MUST become ours in possession and daily practice. Jesus said that unless YOUR righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees you will in no way enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus also said that THOSE WHO ARE COUNTED WORTHY of the age to come will neither marry nor be given in marriage. There is a worthiness we must, by God's grace through our OBEDIENCE OF FAITH, attain to.


The popular false teaching of the day says that we don't need any active righteousness of our own life, Jesus did it all. Well, the Bible lets us know that if Jesus is truly our righteousness, it will show in our daily deeds of righteousness, the obedience of faith. Only in Christ can we serve and please God, but it is not by sitting around saying, "Jesus is my righteousness". I do believe that this kind of absolute perfection is possible if we would keep letting God mature us in Christ, but Paul wrote at one point that he had not yet attained that at one point in his life. Paul had never deliberately sinned in his life, yet if Paul had not yet attained that, then I was just saying that I don't believe that the Bible is demanding any kind of absolute perfection in thought, word and deed immediately in our lives. I do believe that we should aim for that kind of perfection, but I don't believe that comes immediately upon believing nor upon some kind of "second blessing" called sanctification. However, God does make us able, upon our first believing in Christ and being born again, to obey Him and to do what is right and to get our hearts purified and perfected. His grace is always sufficient for us. Later Paul said that he had finally attained, he had fought the good fight, he had finished the course!


Maturity in our obedience and sanctification does not come immediately we all realize. But it is amazing how hypocrisy works: One the one hand someone can admit being a sinner, admit they try to live a daily repentance, and in that way admitting their daily slavery to sin, yet then they can get offended when someone calls them a sinner! I do believe that God desires and rightfully expects us to live like Jesus, in absolute obedience, but I believe He knows we are learning to become mature and that He is a very practical God. According to your faith that perfection is either possible or impossible, Paul would not have been able to say that he had not yet attained perfection yet if it were impossible in this life. Or, if all who are in Christ would automatically be considered perfect, like some people now believe and teach, then even trying to attain what had already been accomplished would not even be an issue.
 
So there is a righteousness that we must work daily by the grace and power God gives us in and through our union with Christ, by the life of Christ living in us. That is why the Bible says that only those who actually do what is right are really righteous.1 Jn 3:7  The sinners don't like that truth, so they ignore it and say, "OHH nooo! We can't be righteous enough, so why even try? God demands such unattainable perfection in righteousness, only Christ could do that! So why even try? That would constitute trying to achieve your own rigtheousness! Well, with me it is that I am not alone doing any good deed, any good is only by Christ living in me. "The righteous life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." I am not obeying God apart from Christ's righteousness, but in union with Him. My new self was "created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians) Remember, there would be no need for daily repentance unless there were daily sin going on in your life. And the Bible speaks no where of us aiming at daily repentance, and quite the contrary, it warns us against laying again the foundation of repentance from sins that lead to death (Heb. 6:1).

And again it says clearly, "The righteous are barely saved, where does that leave the godless and the sinner?" 1 Peter4:18


Again we see that the sinners don't make it, only the saints who consistently live holy, the "OVERCOMERS" (that word clearly implies a victory over sin). The Bible ties being righteous in with not sinning in 1 Jn 3:7-10. Read it please. The believer who sins, who sins regularly (it doesn't mean constantly), daily, has shrunk back and become a child of the devil again, and if he doesn't repent and stop sinning he will become twice dead, plucked up by the roots (Jude 12). And again, to real born again Christians it clearly says, "My brothers, If one of you (saints) should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins." (Jms 5:19,20)

 

The Bible says, IF we sin, not when we inevitably sin. In fact right before it says this it says that "These things were written so that you will not sin." Thank God that if we sin we do have an advocate, but sin is very addictive and habit forming. If we choose to deliberately sin, it will be easier to do it again, next, here comes slavery! We have to be alive to sin to decide to do something evil or wrong. Remember, Jesus says that the slave has no permanent place in the family. That implies that there are still some in 2the Body of Christ who still sin, who are learning to have Christ formed in them, who are still needing to repent and reckon themselves dead to sin. Jesus told us to go and sin no more. If the sin promoting teachers were teaching truth, that would be impossible, and therefore Jesus would be impractical, unrealistic and unjust to tell people to do something impossible. Jesus said, 'stop sinning lest something worse happen to you'. The Lord never tells us to do what we cannot do. That would be wrong, mean, and unjust. "Come to your senses and stop sinning..." 1 Cor 15:34


We must and can overcome. God told Cain that sin was crouching at the door, and its desire was to have him. Do not go the way of Cain, or Esau, who gave up his birthright for some temporary sexual immorality. That is why he ended up not recognizing his great privilege and spiritual birthright. Are we watching sin as our entertainment on TV? No wonder we don't believe God's word. He says, "YOU DIED TO SIN ONCE AND FOR ALL, WHEN JESUS DIED TO IT, IF YOU ARE IN CHRIST AND JOINED TO HIM BY BAPTISM INTO HIS DEATH, SO SET YOUR HEARTS AND MINDS ON THINGS ABOVE, WHERE CHRIST IS SEATED AT GOD'S RIGHT HAND. HOW CAN WE GO ON IN IT ANYMORE?"


We are talking about deliberate willful sin that leads to death. There is a kind of sin that does not lead to death. The Bible, in Hebrews chapter 6 and 10 describes willful deliberate sinning that will cause us to shipwreck our faith by giving up a clear conscience. When will you overcome, when will you finally repent, and what damage will you do and suffer, what loss will be irreparable? I myself actually got up in a home church where they all knew me, lived with some of the elders, and admitted my sexual sin to them all. They didn't really respond properly because many of them were battling similar sins. That church was destroyed by some of the same sins, and God graciously delivered me. But not when I confessed. I still had to overcome. That is what fasting and prayer and seeking God and learning obedience of true faith and overcoming and sanctification is about. Romans chapter 6 says alot. "But thanks be to God that, although you used to be slaves to sin, YET YOU OBEYED FROM THE HEART THE TEACHING OF THE TRUTH. BEING SET FREE FROM SIN, YOU BECAME THE SLAVES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS." 6:17


The Holy Spirit says we are to be set free from sin. We don't aquire sinlessness overnight, but we can obey God and live sinlessly from the beginning of our conversion, IF we are taught the truth that we died to sin, that we can do it by God's grace, and that there will be some sufferings as we learn to share in Christ's sufferings. Listen, "whoever suffers physically IS FINISHED WITH SIN and spends the rest of his life doing God's will (not for his own desires). 1 Pet 4:1,2 If we are not helping orphans or widows right now, if we are not giving our all for God right now, that doesn't mean we are necessarily sinning. We are to do the good God leads us to, as we have opportunity. This, 'we are all sinners' false gospel is so common, when will we repent from our sins and wake up and stop looking for excuses and encouragement for the sinning that kills us?


Sadly, it is true: most modern Christians who are part of this great falling away do sin daily, but Christians are not supposed to sin daily. It is the exception rather than the rule, even though now days it is the reality of the great majority. You will make many friends as you keep identifying with sin and being alive to sin. God's people have always hated being reminded to repent from their sins, but go ahead and stay a slave of sin if you insist. Jesus is the One who said, "Whoever sins is a slave to sin, and the slave has no permanent place in the family." Jesus said, "Go and sin no more." The Holy Spirit teaches us, "Come to your senses and stop sinning." 1 Cor 15:34 In fact the Bible says that this is how we will know who the real Christians are and who the pretenders, the children of the Devil are: whoever continues to sin is of the Devil. 1 Jn 3:7-10 Chad, I am in fact dead to sin. I have been set free from every sin that leads to death, by my union with Christ in His death to sin and His resurrection life living in me every day. I am in Christ, a new person, no longer that wretched slave of sin that doesn't do the good I know to do, and keeps doing the evil I don't want to do. "Sin shall have NO dominion over me, for I am not under law but am under grace."


"Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is DONE WITH SIN. As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God." 1 Pt 4:1,2  We who are really in Christ are members of one another, and we walk in the light. If anyone is going to admit their sins, then those who love them will urge them to repent of their sins, or we are not real Christians.

And why admit your sins and then get angry and accuse someone who, based on the information you gave, loves you by urging you to repent before Judgment Day is here? We can be completely sinless, free of sin completely. Jesus commanded us to be perfect, even as our Heavenly Father is perfect. Paul said by the Spirit to aim for perfection. Jesus nor Paul would have told us to do something that is impossible, or the Lord would be unrighteous. This is not talking about some ABSOLUTE PERFECTION where someone never forgets or loses or breaks something, but it is possible to live like Jesus lived ("Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did." 1 Jn 2:6 This scripture clearly implies that it is not only possible to live like Jesus but that we are expected by God to live like Jesus!!) Paul said that he had not, at the time of that writing, become completely perfect, but he lived a completely sinless life. Paul lived completely free from sin, by God's grace. I believe that Paul was perfected before he went to be with the Lord (2 Tim 4:6-8).


Many of you admit to being sinners, wretched and in bondage to your flesh. Many of you are playing with battling against sin instead of reckoning yourself dead to it. Dead is dead indeed. We should fight to overcome sin, but when some of you say you are battling sin, that means that sometimes you give in and keep sinning, simple as that. Be honest, pretending doesn't help anything. Either you are a slave to sin or you are a slave to obedience which leads to righteousness which leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life (Rom ch 6). Only the man on the road to destruction cannot do the good that he wants to do, and keeps doing things that he doesn't want to do. Unless he learns that He is in union with Christ, and exercises his faith to overcome the world by faith in the Son of God, learning to obey the leadings of the Spirit to become more than a conquerer through the one man, Jesus Christ (Rom 5:17,19). 
 
Yes, "when we were still sinners, Christ died for us". Yes, none of us were righteous in and of ourselves, and it is only by God's grace through our faith that we obeyed the gospel and turned from our sins in true repentance. But "WHEN WE WERE STILL SINNERS..." CLEARLY IMPLIES THAT WE ARE NOT NOW STILL SINNERS, WE WHO ARE THE TRUE SAINTS OF GOD IN CHRIST! Jesus said, "...even sinners do that (love those who love them)" The sinners don't make it, so I will not waste the Lord's time in my life arguing with those who fight to justify themselves while they determine to keep sinning, who often try desparately to maintain their false hope and lead others to join them.  

 

 

More good reading: How to overcome sin by Charles Finney

Print | Sitemap
© Tom Heiden