- Jun 26, 2015
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Can A Man Really Stop Sinning?
Can we really ever hope to stop sinning? Can we ever overcome it? The answer that we, for the most part, believe today is... no. The inability of man to defeat sin and the old man that continues to dwell inside us is what we all basically hear in our churches, is it not? It is an unspoken, but foundational part of our Christianity, no matter what brand of Christianity we adhere to, right?
Our standard that "we are only human and no one is perfect" has been our modern day Christian mantra. I certainly understand why we hold fast to such a belief, BUT, we are now reaping the fruits of such a belief..... in spades. And trust me, it is going to get worse.
You see, it would be one thing if we in the church fell into sin, that we then immediately repented with bitter tears, avowing wholeheartedly that we will not do "that" sin again. It would be one thing if we each individually really were striving for holiness of character. But we are not, if honesty is foremost here. Our attitude is as long as we do not stray too far, Jesus makes up the difference. No reason to get all carried away in extremism.
But you see, that mindset is the insidious side of this belief we treasure and hold fast too with NO budging. Our modern take on God's grace, where even repentance and confession are not needed to remain saved.....should it not take us higher and higher in our response to said grace? Isn’t that our theory? We will be so thankful for unmerited favor that we will want to obey all the more, correct? Yet, is it ours? How is that working out in our individual lives?
If we are brutally honest, not well for the vast majority of us. This belief has slowly stripped us of our strength to resist, and poisoned our faith in the delivering power of our God and what He is able to do for us...and in us. It has clasped irons on our wrists where sins, once dalliances, have now started to become addictive.
Our continued sinning has done exactly what we have been warned it will do... harden our hearts. Sadly, we have become blinded to our sad state, and as a result, we are thus so lukewarm to the things of God yet blazing hot to our own hopes and dreams that for the most part, our lives pretty much look like the lives of the lost in the world... well, other than our Sunday morning habits.
We have duplicated the error of Samson, flirting so long with temptation that we eventually bit deeply into the apple of unbelief. He found it bit back, and now so are we. The result of our folly? Our current state of churchianity, where we draw near Him with our lips but our hearts? They are OURS. Those in the world call us hypocrites. We call us forgiven.... and because we are free, we can continue to be hypocrites. Amazing grace, right? No, amazing blindness.
The real question about our relationship to sin in our salvation is not whether or not our denomination says about it, nor what we think is even remotely possible for us, nor even because we have never seen such a thing face to face. The ultimate question each child of God has to wrestle with is.... what does God say about it? Ultimately, nothing else matters. Nothing.
So what does God tell us? Jesus taught us to pray that we be delivered from evil. We are then told by Paul that we have not just been forgiven, we have delivered from the very power of it. We are told that sin shall no longer have dominion over us, for we are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit, and we owe the flesh nothing. We are told that grace is “to teach us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we are to live soberly, righteously and justly in this present life."
We are told to walk out our Christianity here on earth as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service. God has promised to equip us with armor, weaponry and shields of faith that are promised to quench all the fiery arrows of the enemy. Finally, God promises to "cause us" to walk out our lives as obedient holy children, and will thus not allow us to be tempted above our ability to resist.
God has told us that it is them who hunger and thirst for righteousness..... not forgiveness, but a righteous heart, a new nature, they will be the ones filled. He has told us that it is the pure in heart who are the blessed ones, and it is they who are the ones who will see God. He has urged us to holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Do we see a problem here, Houston? Can we not comprehend that It is our unbelief in the clear promises of God that has put poison in our midst, keeping us fleshly saints, made us into a church having a form of godliness down pat but yet denying flat out that God can set us free indeed as He promised.
I have much more to say (shocked, huh? LOL), on this amazing subject of how to walk in our new natures and what that means to us. This post was simply an attempt to get us to look past our biases, and they are MANY, and to confront our real problem as to why we are not thriving, and turning the world upside down for Christ. What is it?
Unbelief.
It kept 600,000 Israelites out of their inheritance, and it has kept us out of ours. Our time as the awakening virgins who will light their lamps, and be the light we are told we are, is approaching fast. We are about to be amazed.
Many blessings, dear brothers and sisters
Gideon
Can we really ever hope to stop sinning? Can we ever overcome it? The answer that we, for the most part, believe today is... no. The inability of man to defeat sin and the old man that continues to dwell inside us is what we all basically hear in our churches, is it not? It is an unspoken, but foundational part of our Christianity, no matter what brand of Christianity we adhere to, right?
Our standard that "we are only human and no one is perfect" has been our modern day Christian mantra. I certainly understand why we hold fast to such a belief, BUT, we are now reaping the fruits of such a belief..... in spades. And trust me, it is going to get worse.
You see, it would be one thing if we in the church fell into sin, that we then immediately repented with bitter tears, avowing wholeheartedly that we will not do "that" sin again. It would be one thing if we each individually really were striving for holiness of character. But we are not, if honesty is foremost here. Our attitude is as long as we do not stray too far, Jesus makes up the difference. No reason to get all carried away in extremism.
But you see, that mindset is the insidious side of this belief we treasure and hold fast too with NO budging. Our modern take on God's grace, where even repentance and confession are not needed to remain saved.....should it not take us higher and higher in our response to said grace? Isn’t that our theory? We will be so thankful for unmerited favor that we will want to obey all the more, correct? Yet, is it ours? How is that working out in our individual lives?
If we are brutally honest, not well for the vast majority of us. This belief has slowly stripped us of our strength to resist, and poisoned our faith in the delivering power of our God and what He is able to do for us...and in us. It has clasped irons on our wrists where sins, once dalliances, have now started to become addictive.
Our continued sinning has done exactly what we have been warned it will do... harden our hearts. Sadly, we have become blinded to our sad state, and as a result, we are thus so lukewarm to the things of God yet blazing hot to our own hopes and dreams that for the most part, our lives pretty much look like the lives of the lost in the world... well, other than our Sunday morning habits.
We have duplicated the error of Samson, flirting so long with temptation that we eventually bit deeply into the apple of unbelief. He found it bit back, and now so are we. The result of our folly? Our current state of churchianity, where we draw near Him with our lips but our hearts? They are OURS. Those in the world call us hypocrites. We call us forgiven.... and because we are free, we can continue to be hypocrites. Amazing grace, right? No, amazing blindness.
The real question about our relationship to sin in our salvation is not whether or not our denomination says about it, nor what we think is even remotely possible for us, nor even because we have never seen such a thing face to face. The ultimate question each child of God has to wrestle with is.... what does God say about it? Ultimately, nothing else matters. Nothing.
So what does God tell us? Jesus taught us to pray that we be delivered from evil. We are then told by Paul that we have not just been forgiven, we have delivered from the very power of it. We are told that sin shall no longer have dominion over us, for we are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit, and we owe the flesh nothing. We are told that grace is “to teach us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we are to live soberly, righteously and justly in this present life."
We are told to walk out our Christianity here on earth as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service. God has promised to equip us with armor, weaponry and shields of faith that are promised to quench all the fiery arrows of the enemy. Finally, God promises to "cause us" to walk out our lives as obedient holy children, and will thus not allow us to be tempted above our ability to resist.
God has told us that it is them who hunger and thirst for righteousness..... not forgiveness, but a righteous heart, a new nature, they will be the ones filled. He has told us that it is the pure in heart who are the blessed ones, and it is they who are the ones who will see God. He has urged us to holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Do we see a problem here, Houston? Can we not comprehend that It is our unbelief in the clear promises of God that has put poison in our midst, keeping us fleshly saints, made us into a church having a form of godliness down pat but yet denying flat out that God can set us free indeed as He promised.
I have much more to say (shocked, huh? LOL), on this amazing subject of how to walk in our new natures and what that means to us. This post was simply an attempt to get us to look past our biases, and they are MANY, and to confront our real problem as to why we are not thriving, and turning the world upside down for Christ. What is it?
Unbelief.
It kept 600,000 Israelites out of their inheritance, and it has kept us out of ours. Our time as the awakening virgins who will light their lamps, and be the light we are told we are, is approaching fast. We are about to be amazed.
Many blessings, dear brothers and sisters
Gideon