Sinning After Conversion?

[corymartin2012]

Disclaimer: I am not advocating that one must sin no more after conversion or not be a Christian nor am I claiming that salvation can be loss due to sin.

Now that were done with that, I had a little bit of a "debate" of theological ideas the other day. In our talk we were brought up that if you go on sinning in habitual sin that your conversion may not have been true. That if you go on sinning (sexual sin, killing, lying, stealing) habitually that there may not have been any change at all.. Of which I agree whole-heartedly. What do ya'll think?

Do you think that you can go on in habitual sin and have been a true convert?

 

[DigiDigi]

Habitual sin, meaning doing immoral acts under habit, can be interpreted differently with every individual under influence of their society's norm. I do believe that anything that can be harmful to an individual(s) is considered immoral. So I do not believe that something like sex can ever be immoral because it causes pleasure, which is a positive result, therefore it is beautiful.

As for something like murder or genocide, I consider immoral. It depends on the habit. If you are going against your religion's doctrines then you can automatically be considered disobedient to the faith, rather than a technical description such as blasphemous or heretic. If you, for example, convert from atheism to theism and you say, punch a priest in the face because you want your donation money back the day of conversion, then you cannot be considered disobedient even because you don't have enough knowledge and experience as a theist to have a theist's moral mindset and virtues to imply into your own life.

 

[RipleyCountyChristian]

I sort of agree with you here Cory, I think that if you make the sincere decision to follow Christ, but afterwords still live in sin, and continue to do the wrong thing habitually. The most important thing to do in that situation is to pray your heart out. Because I firmly believe what it says in John 10:10, that Satan is a liar, and he is out to steal, kill, and destroy, and after you come to Christ, Satan is going to come at you harder than ever before...and well after you come off that post-conversion "spiritual high", you are going to be tempted like crazy to return to your old sinful ways. And many people do get swept up by sin at times like that. I can testify to that myself. But of course it doesn’t take long to realize, “Oh dang, what have i been doing? I made a commitment to put my old ways behind me, yet here I am living in darkness again”. Then of course, you pray to God for strength and forgiveness once more. But then there are then insincere conversions, I don’t believe those count, if anything, it is blasphemous to act like you are going to convert and go through all the prayer and stuff, just to do it, and not mean it at all.

 

[Rhayven]

These kinds of threads make my head explode, but I do now nobody is perfect until we reach heaven. I believe that you will be accountable for your actions. But that does not mean we can't enter into heaven, because we are not perfect and we are all already destined to go to hell. So by the grace of God we are alive today and for people to know that for His elect we will be in a better place soon enough!