Sin and the sinner

[Aussie Pete]

How do birds fly? It is not by telling them that's what birds are supposed to do. There are no flight training schools for birds. They've already got real wings, so a badge is not use to them. No, birds fly simply because it is in their nature.

Why do people sin? It's the same reason. It is inbuilt into the sin nature. No one has to teach a child how to rebel. No one has to train a child to be selfish. We can modify behaviour by putting a straightjacket of laws and punishments around people. We cannot change the intrinsic nature of humanity.

God has a number of problems to deal with. He has to deal with sins. They separate man from God. Each individual owes God a debt consisting of the sins he accumulates through his life.

Most Christians know that our sins are forgiven. Not everyone knows that God has also dealt with the nature that produces the sin. It is not enough to be forgiven, then sin again in an endless cycle of defeat. God includes the sinner in the death of Christ. It's like a factory that produces sin. It is shut down through the cross.

This is still not the complete answer. Not sinning is not positively pleasing God. it just keeps us out of trouble. So God raises us up with Christ so that we receive a new nature which does not produce sin. This is what it means to be born again. The new nature hates sin. A new conscience convicts us of things that once were perfectly acceptable to us.

This creates another problem. We soon find that our efforts to avoid sin and to positively please God are in vain. We know what we should do. We know what we should be. So what do we do about it?

There are a number of responses. I will condense them.

Some Christians throw up their hands in despair, say it all too hard and give up. Others struggle on, grimly determined to try and follow Jesus as best they can.

Bookshops and countless on-line resources are packed with information on how to be a better Christian. There is all kind of self help resources. Is there not a better way?

There is a better way and some Christians come to this realisation. I've mentioned this elsewhere, but it bears repeating. God gives us Lord Jesus to be all that we should be but cannot be. We should be humble, submissive, obedient, loving, generous, trustworthy, faithful and display all the fruit of the Spirit. Nice in theory. How does this happen in practice?

Remember how birds fly because they are birds and no other reason? So it is with the born again. We are Christians by nature, through the new birth. We will not live in the light of this if we do not believe it. We will not positively please God if we are still trying in our own strength. What we do for God means nothing. What God does in and through us is eternal and cannot be destroyed. It's our choice, not just once but constantly.

 

[Jamdoc]

Your spirit is new, your flesh is not new. it's a daily war of denying the flesh. You're not going to achieve sinless perfection because you have the same old flesh with the same old sin nature in that flesh.
There is no easy way to obedience. If it were easy everyone would be Christian and there'd be no sin on this earth. But because it's hard, because its your spirit warring against your flesh, because it's full of trials and tribulation, a minority of the earth is Christian, and there will always be sin in this world, until God makes all things new. There will always be sin in YOU, until you depart from your body, or God makes your body new too. FLESH does not inherit the kingdom of God.
Otherwise if it were possible for us to be sinlessly perfect, we wouldn't need to die not even once.
The world wouldn't need to be destroyed and made new.
and Jesus wouldn't have had to die at all.

 

[JIMINZ]

Your spirit is new, your flesh is not new.

Are you really that unlearned?
Your Flesh is DEAD, Crucified with Christ and Resurrected unto NEWNESS of LIFE in the Spirit, (Not again to the flesh)

By the way, you are also DEAD to the LAW, and SIN as well.

it's a daily war of denying the flesh.

If you were Baptized, you have PUT on Christ, your Flesh is DEAD.
Jesus destroyed SIN in the Flesh.

Rom 8:2-5
2) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
3) For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4) That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
5) For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

You are concentrating to much on what the Flesh use to do, and not enough on what Jesus has done for you, in setting you Free, He who is FREE is FREE INDEED.

You're not going to achieve sinless perfection because you have the same old flesh with the same old sin nature in that flesh.

Again, you are DEAD to the FLESH the LAW and SIN, stop being a babe in Christ and grow up.

There is no easy way to obedience. If it were easy everyone would be Christian and there'd be no sin on this earth.

That is exactly correct, so stop trying to do it yourself, it isn't something that you will ever acheive as you have found out, accept the Sacrifice Jesus afforded to you.

No man comes to the Jesus unless the Spirit of God Draws him.

So no you statement is not true, it isn't something that anyone can do it's only by Christ, and through the Holy Spirit, not by WILLPOWER.

 

[Jamdoc]

Your flesh is not dead yet. If you're still in a biological body, you have a new spirit in old flesh.