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“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8 NASB1995; read vs.1-13)
If we, who profess faith in Jesus Christ, allow sin to reign in our mortal bodies, and if we then gather together with the body of Christ, we are not going to be able to have a spiritual influence on the rest of the church which will lead them to walks of faith in obedience to our Lord in holy living. We will either have no influence at all, or a negative one, for what comes out of our mouths comes from what is stored up in our hearts. And all it takes is one bad influence to begin the spread of influence contrary to God’s will.
Now there are people who fake their Christianity, and those who are charlatans and wolves in sheep’s clothing who may appear to say the right things when they are trying to impress, manipulate, and/or deceive others with their lies, so we have to be very discerning here. For just because they may sound religious, and as though they are speaking the truth, it does not mean that lies are not in the mix or that they are not trying to gain your support for a later time in which they will convince you with their lies.
And this is why the New Testament Scriptures speak to the church and to all who profess the name of Jesus over and over again, warning all of us against lies and liars and deceptions and false teachings and Satan’s traps, and against falling for these deceptions. And it is why we have warnings such as this, and instructions in what to do to correct the situation, so that we don’t all end up in the pit thinking that we are in the right place. For all it takes is one rotten piece of fruit to infect the others and to rot them all.
And from the perspective of a 75 year old, who grew up attending church gatherings from infanthood, and who has lived many different places, and been a part of many different gatherings of the church (or the false church), and been very active in Christian ministry most of her life, including in church planting, I can tell you that deception has been working its way very slowly through the church, at least all of my life, and they have very slowly been diluting and altering the gospel to make it less offensive to the world.
And so rather than removing from their midst (see verse 2) those who are willfully, deliberately, and habitually living sinful lifestyles, with no signs of genuine repentance and changed hearts and lives, many coddle the habitual sinners in their sin, and they convince them that a mere verbal profession of faith in Jesus Christ assures them of forgiveness of all sin and heaven as their eternal resting place, but regardless of how they live. And if they feel guilty, they tell them to just claim who they are in Christ, which is a lie.
For if we made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, but then we went right on living just like we did before we made the profession of faith, we are not really “in Christ,” by faith in him. For faith which saves comes from God, it is persuaded of God, and it is gifted to us by God. And it is not of our own doing, so we don’t get to decide what that faith looks like. For biblical faith results in us denying self, dying with Christ to sin, and walks of obedience to our Lord’s commands, in practice, by the grace of God, in the power of God.
And this is not saying that we will be absolutely perfect in all ways from that point forward (1 John 2:1-2) and that we will never fail or never sin. But sin is no longer to be what we live by, what we practice. Rather, holy living and righteousness are to be what we practice, and obedience to our Lord and to his commands. And if at any time we wander from that, we must come back to following our Lord and walking in his ways. But habitual wandering is still deliberate and habitual sinning against God, which will not end in heaven.
So, the encouragement here for the church, as a whole, is to be God’s holy people who walk in righteousness and in obedience to the Lord, and for whom sin is not their practice, who also exercise church discipline on those who refuse to genuinely repent of their sinful lifestyles and to change their life course to follow the Lord in obedience. And please know that repentance is not just saying you are sorry, especially if you are sinning and saying you are sorry deliberately and habitually, and the cycle keeps going on forever.
[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]
Seek the Lord
An Original Work / July 20, 2012
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love
Musical Instrumentation by Mark Bradley
Based off Isaiah 55
“Come to Me all you who thirst; come to waters.
Listen to Me, and eat what’s good today,
And your soul will delight in richest of fare.
Give ear to Me, and you will live.
I have made an eternal covenant with you.
Wash in the blood of the Lamb.”
Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him.
Let the wicked forsake his way, in truth.
Let him turn to the Lord, and he will receive mercy.
Freely, God pardons him.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,”
declares the Lord, our God.
“My word that goes out of My mouth is truthful.
It will not return to Me unfulfilled.
My word will accomplish all that I desire,
And achieve the goal I intend.
You will go in joy and be led forth in peace.
The mountains will burst into song… before you,
And all of the trees clap their hands.”
Deliberate and Habitual Sinning
An Original Work / June 4, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love
