Tag: sin | Christian eCommunity

“Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.”
– Romans 7:13

Sin is a natural part of our life in the flesh – the same as hunger and exhaustion – inherited from our fall in Eden. There are no moral implications about sin in the flesh because it just is. Now that may cause a bit of a stir or give rise to objections, but what we would like to share is a better understanding of sin as it affects every one of us so that we can better realize who we are in Christ. Many of us struggle in bondage to our guilt and never seem to fulfill our purposes in Christ. Our heart too often gets defeated within us because we believe so strongly in our sinfulness and how terrible we are.

So again we say, there are no moral implications about sin in the flesh because it just is. Where the moral implications come into play is in our responses and subsequent choices to the urges and demands it places on us.

“It is out of the heart that evil thoughts come, as well as murder, adultery, sexual immorality, stealing, false testimony, and slander.”
– Matthew 15:19

When Adam disbelieved and disobeyed God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he from that moment was separated from God. His thoughts were his alone without the influence of God within as one Spirit. His thoughts were those of a flesh and blood human being. If he hurt himself his response would be, “ow”. If he became tired his response would be to nap. If he was confronted and accused his response would be to lie. We have that fallen nature, and before Christ came into our lives we responded in the same manner. We would act contrary to God’s ways as easily as we would sneeze from dust. Without God we lived in accordance to our flesh.

So why did God have a problem with sin if it was just what it was? For the same reason that darkness cannot continue to exist when the light is turned on, our sinful nature could not exist in the presence of God. We would cease to be, and He didn’t want us to not exist.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
– John 3:16

What we’re saying so far is that our sinful nature is not something we can take to ourselves, to enlarge it or reduce it. It just is, and it is why we are separated from God and why we would have no hope without Him. None of us is more sinful than another, and none of us is less sinful, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – Romans 3:23. Many of us berate ourselves and put ourselves down because we moan over our sinful nature like it was something we had a say in. We don’t. It is a condition, a terminal condition with no cure and we are destined for death and destruction because of it.

there are no moral implications about sin in the flesh because it just is

Kind of makes moaning about our sinfulness seem useless, don’t you think? And it’s good that it does because as long as we waste time considering that we have a say in our sinful nature, we can never fully understand or realize the gift of grace from our Father and our Lord Jesus. What we should realize instead is our need for rescue. We need to be rescued from this body of sin because there are no other options that we can implement. We need the grace and salvation of God.

“remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
– Ephesians 2:12-13

Once this is realized we can then better and more fully understand the love and mercy of our Father in Jesus Christ the Lord. We are not just the recipients of forgiveness for all the contrary and wayward things we have done – we are the recipients of a life giving cure for our terminal disease of sinful flesh – in spite of all the contrary and wayward things we have done!

“…whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” – Luke 7:47b.

Being forgiven all our acts of sin and wickedness has a quantity assigned to it. We measure how bad we are by the things we’ve done, and the level of our love for our Lord demonstrates that, but being saved from our terminal, sinful nature covers everything! There is now no limit to the love God can stir within our hearts through His Gift in Jesus! God Himself is our cure by dwelling in us through His Spirit and Son, thinking His thoughts within our minds and inspiring His will within our hearts. The sins we have committed in our ignorance before we knew Him are forgiven, and the sins we may have committed since we knew Him are forgiven, and the sins we may commit in the future are forgiven. His Grace covers it all! What love and gratitude and willingness that must stir up within the heart that sees this! What an amazing God we serve Who chose to cure us of our fatal disease rather than let us die – even though we were so contrary to all He created and ungrateful for all He intended!

There is now no limit to the love God can stir within our hearts through His Gift in Jesus!

Now this may be mistaken as a license to sin doctrine but it certainly is not, so let’s look at where the moral implications do come to bear. What is our responsibility in the nature of sin? We are responsible in what we choose.

When our flesh demands we leer at a pretty woman or a handsome man, we are inclined to do so, except now we also know it is contrary to the will of our Father. We can choose to not look with lust, or we can hate it if we do and wish we never did, or we can not look but struggle afterwards with recurring flesh-minded imaginations. We want God’s way regardless of what our flesh tries to force upon us, but the flesh is still flesh and subject to the sinful nature. Although it no longer has the power to kill us it still reacts and interacts in our flesh. It still just is, and it will trip us up at times, but we choose God because He dwells in us and inspires us always to choose Him. If we fail, we regret because our minds are for Him. If we overcome we rejoice because our minds are for Him. In every way it’s always Him.

IMPORTANT! The moral implications of sin come into play when we choose to follow the demands of the flesh, and continue in them, to practice them and make excuses for why they’re okay. We have Christ dwelling in us so we have no excuse if we were to continue a life of practiced sin. May it never happen to any of us! If we turn from this wonderful, saving Grace and give preference to the demands of our flesh – if we do so willfully and without any remorse, we have rejected His Gift and have chosen death and separation instead.

“It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life.”
– 2 Peter 2:21

Again, may it never happen to any of us! And it will not because we have God the Father and Lord Jesus the Son dwelling inside us through their Spirit, ever reminding us of His will and ways. And we have one another to encourage each other and exhort each other to keep our minds on Jesus. We strive daily to keep our minds focused on our Lord and to hear His thoughts and respond to His inspirations. And sin, though it may cause trouble at times, will not rule over us and it cannot kill us.

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”
– Isaiah 26:3

Settle it in the truth that you are cured from your very nature of sinfulness – all of it – and there is no more counting and measuring the extent of it. We are all forgiven – and we are all forgiven much! Let us begin to love much to the glory of Jesus.

we have God the Father and Lord Jesus the Son dwelling inside us through their Spirit, ever reminding us of His will and ways. And we have one another to encourage us and exhort us to keep our minds on Jesus.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
– John 3:17

This post may draw controversy but our hope is that it will shed light on an issue facing Christians continually. Every day believers in Christ are surrounded by the practices of sin and many feel compelled to stand up and say something. They feel drawn to announce that sins are against God’s will and must be stopped, and that sinners must forsake their practices and turn to God in order to be freed from their sins. They parade, and protest, and shout out, and point fingers, and wave bibles.

The difficulty with that response is that unbelievers have no desire to approach God because He – in their eyes – is too condemning. He is not shared as Someone they could easily turn to for salvation. And that begs the real question, how did Jesus approach the issues of sin when He waked this earth as a man?

“When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'”
– Mark 2:16-17

Jesus was in no way permissive because He many times admonished others to “go and sin no more“, but He chose to reach out to people with the truth about sin – not about sins. His concern was showing the love of the Father, and the prison of sin, and the freedom of new life. He sat with sinners and spoke to them about the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and they were drawn to listen and to reconsider their lives. He did not sit with them and berate them for being gay, or adulterers, or thieves, or liars. Actually, the only ones He did chastise were those who were supposed to know better. The “good” religious leaders.

So what was Jesus showing us? That He came to save – not to condemn. And how does that translate to us? Quite simply, attending rallies and protests against any specific sin is really a waste of time and not something we can claim to be doing in the Spirit of God. The ruler of this world is judged, so trying to just fix the ways of this world is contrary to God’s will. And that is all we’re doing when we protest the actions of others in the manner of this world. We are only trying to make our existence better instead of showing others the Way to freedom.

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–comes not from the Father but from the world.”
– 1 John 2:15-16

Consider these two statements:

You are wrong! You must change!
You are trapped. I can help.

Which is more likely to draw a person to God? Jesus came to show us that we were trapped in sin, and to tell us He can help – and then He helped. He did not leave a struggling sinner feeling alienated or alone but instead drew them – not pushed them – drew them to the truth. And the truth is, we cannot change our ways without Him. It is by His Spirit only that we can find the desire, will, and strength to walk in accordance to His ways.

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
– John 6:44

So we, as believers, can work with God in drawing people to Christ, or we can be contrary and make Him unpleasant in their eyes.

the only ones He did chastise were those who were supposed to know better. The “good” religious leaders.

Do we just ignore sin then? No, sin does harm. It steals, kills and destroys. And it is way of the devil who is a fallen angel and much more intelligent and clever than any of us. To argue against his ways in the manner of men is to invite ridicule and shame. Only in Christ can we address the harm – by doing good. Seek the healing of the gay man dying of aids. Pray for the woman who stole $20 from you and see if she might need $20 more. Listen to the husband who pours out his anguish for cheating on his wife and believing his marriage is hopeless.

Care.

Then people will begin to see Christ through our actions, and will be drawn to Him, and will be changed by Him. Without Him none of us could escape from the hold and practices of sin, and it is good for us to always remember that. We cannot change the mind of sinners, but Jesus can.

Are we then permitting sin? No, we are certainly not permitting any sins because they are contrary to the ways of our Lord. We no longer practice them and we do not encourage others in their practice. Instead we are living and exampling the way to truth and freedom and inviting others in. Each of us came to Christ first, and then the sin that held us was released and the practices we held began to be changed. We did not have to stop our practices before we came – we only had to want Him and His way instead of our own.

We cannot change the mind of sinners, but Jesus can.

Just as I am. That is the grace we have received, and the grace we are called to extend to those who do not yet understand His kindness.

“…it is God’s kindness that is trying to lead you to him and change the way you think and act”
– Romans 2:4b

Settle this in the truth then, that we are still here in this world solely to do good and show others the kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Jesus stood up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.’”
– John 8:10-11

The Nature Of Sin In The Flesh

Jesus Did Not Come To Condemn