Not Having to Sin

I’m guilty of believing sin in my life is inevitable. If I resign myself to sinning again, then sin is sure to come. However, if I commit myself to not sinning anymore, then I have changed my goal to holiness. The sin for the Christian is a matter of if, not when:

    “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1 John 2:1)

So many Christians succumb to the inevitability of sin in their lives that they do not realize they are free from sin. Unfortunately, many a pastor offers excuses and remedies for sin instead of the antidote and repellent for it.

We have indeed received a pardon for our sins, however that does not equate to a license to sin. Just because we have been forgiven our sins and have an Advocate if we sin, does not mean we should continue to sin. Our goal as Christians should be to sin no more.

Dear Christian, do you realize that when Jesus healed the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, He forbid him to sin again? Jesus did not pat him on the head and tell him to do his best:

    “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.’” (John 5:14)

What was that “worse thing” from which Jesus cautioned the former paralytic? I don’t know and we should not want to find out. If Jesus tells me not to do something because something worse can happen to me, then do I really need any further explanation?

You know why we want to know, right? It’s because we are willing to play spiritual roulette with sin to see if the punishment is worth the pleasure. Now that is the definition of a fool.

Beloved, we should not be walking around like spiritual zombies inflicting sin after sin upon our lives when we have the Holy Spirit to empower us to spiritual alertness:

    “Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.” (1 Corinthians 15:34)

You won’t be able to find that verse on any refrigerator magnet at your local Christian bookstore. Contrary to feeling shame to our sinfulness, we spray ourselves with the Grace of Jesus mist and carry on as though we’re covering up some unpleasant odor.

After the Israelites received the Ten Commandments from Moses, who had received them from God, they were afraid to be in the presence of God. Moses said something that may have been reassuring, however it somewhat startled me the first time I read it:

    “And Moses said to the people, ‘Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.’” (Exodus 20:20)

The Ten Commandments are a mirror for our lives on which we can measure ourselves. We can know what we should not do both to God and to others by looking at those ten “shall not’s.” Again, when you look at Exodus 20, no where do you see God or Moses instructing us to do our best. The “shall not’s” where given to us “so that you may not sin.”

We sin for one or two reasons: we want to or we give in to it. No where in the Bible will you find that we have no choice or recourse over sin. Quite the contrary:

    “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” (Romans 6:12-14)

We sin because we allow it to reign in our bodies; we obey our body’s lusts. So instead of turning from sin, we present our bodies to it. We give ourselves to it. We allow it to have dominion over our lives.

We live as though we have never been forgiven.

We live as though we have no grace.

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2015 David Jeffers

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