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URForgiven -> RE: A Christian WILL NOT Continuously Sin! (4/17/2008 8:54:39 AM)
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ORIGINAL: SonInMe1
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how a Christian CAN live and is NOT supported by scripture.
Sin is not condined scripturally and neither do I condone it.
I also live in the real world.
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Though Jesus Christ gave His life for you and I, taught us, showed us how to live, and then was crucified on the cross for our sins, we all sin continuously but we wait... there's more... we don't let sin control us"
This would be an issue discussed between more mature christians I think than to a new or seeking person.
We also differ in the definition of what constitutes continuous sins. There is a difference, I think, between continious sin and those who sin continiously, or maybe a better defintion would be, those who are imperfect.
If I wallow in sin, and don't care if its wrong or even a sin, then I think there is a problem.
If I have certain sins, or an attitude, like a poor fruit of the spirit, that just gets me all the time, then that is different. Take..self control.
This is one fruit of the spirit I continiously struggle with. Its not always manifested in the same way, but a lot of my sin comes from a lack of self control. It could be temper one time, or lust, or gluttony. I might have a problem for an hour, or a second or for a week or for months.
Think about it...you had 300 sexual partners before you met Jesus. Think that just goes away? How about...smoking? Drinking? How about...them all? Throw in some drugs too.
These things don't disappear. Sometimes, yes God just wipes the slate clean and people never go back to those things. It does happen, but it does not happen all the time.
Its not about will power either. Will power denies God and involves pride. Is there commitment? Certainly. Even sacrifice and struggle and the old nose to the grindstone...I understand all of that well. I doubt you will ever meet someone with a more accomplishment orientated personality than mine.....
but there are things I CANNOT do.
I have prayed and prayed. I know the bible. I have repented and forgiven and asked for forgiveness.
Some....things....God....has...to....do.
Maybe you are blessed. Maybe God allows you to be next to sinless....
maybe God allows me to be sinful in order that His Grace might be manifest.
I often wonder if my witness is the Bizzaro Witness. The opposite witness. The, " if God let that guy be saved then anyone can be saved " witness.
Again I don't condone any sin ever, but I also don't have the mind of God. I don't know why it seems others do not struggle with sin and I do.
I love Jesus. I'd be dead without Him. I would be sick. I would have no future at all without Jesus but ya know something else?
I ain't dead yet. I cannot give up. ( Counter to some here who believe you can walk away from God to me, that is an impossibility. ) The race is not done and I will win that race not because I can do it. If anything my life is a witness to His power and not mine....
and as bad as I am, I am a whole lot better than I was. There is no doubt there has been change in me...the saving kind. So much so that my dad, who saw the change in me, stated it was a big reason why he came to the Lord at 67.
I just cannot proclaim perfection or a next to sinless state because...that would be a sin and not just because it is a lie.
My brother, you are fully conscious. You acknowledge your struggles, allowing God to teach you through them, where others will merely pretend they do not exist at all. It is God that works in you, and He is using your struggles to mold you into His image.
If we would all be like you...honest, aware...conscious, then Christianity would truly be the gift to humanity that it was designed to be.
Do you professing Christians, you who claim to be so righteous, do you not know the world can see right through you? Do you think that the world does not see your sin, even though you do not see it yourself? Your righteousness is filthy rags to God.
Thank you SonInMe for sharing this.
In the following passage the Apostle Paul describes the common experience of every Christian, everywhere, and from all times. It is the shared experience of all who are conscious in the Lord.
"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Romans 7:15-25
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