It is certainly easy to sin - heaps of Christians fear they have lost their salvation because they repeatedly sin and seemingly fail - and others, like I used to be, are quite certain that they are beyond hope of attaining salvation at all because they have committed 'deliberate and wilful sins'.
They have done these sins for so long they feel there is no possible way they can change in this life - This leads them like it did me to despondency, depression and a feeling of 'giving up' on the Christian walk and saying it's 'all too hard' and 'I am destined to hell.'
You know what? All sin is by choice in one sense or another. Even what we call the 'smallest' of sins - (setting aside for the moment the so called 'big' sins) overspending on our budget time and time again - or constantly overeating or jealousy or our bad tempers all these 'sins' can be overcome.
God makes it possible for us not to sin if we are willing to ask for his help.
Heaps of us struggle with on-going sins, habits, addictions and weaknesses. These are what some translations in the Bible calls "besetting sins". BUT.... Romans 2:4 says "or do you presume on the riches of kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that's God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"
You know when the desire of sin hits me - and it does - then God's kindness leads me to repentance each and every time - Yes it is easy to sin if we take our minds off God - if we decide in our heart that Jesus' death which brought about salvation didn't really include me or you - then it is easy to sin.
We then become slaves to our enemy Satan instead of slaves to Christ which is true freedom.
Romans 6:1 says "What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase?'
If increasing sinning means increasing grace then why should we worry about sinning?
From what I can see there are a few reasons:-
- Counting on God to forgive our DELIBERATE sin offends God's grace and makes a laughing stock of what Jesus did to attain our salvation in the first place
- Sinning with the intention of asking God's forgiveness drains our repentance of all sincerity - in other words we may as well not ask!
- Sin violates us all - God purpose has infinitely more in store for us than that!
It's very obvious that sin in our lives is still alive and kicking - all of us are susceptible to sin and we still fall for Satan's old tricks BUT...
A true relationship with Jesus can break the cycle of sin and it loses it's authority over us.
Sin will still come calling on you. There could be threats or even enticements that we could miss out if we don't cooperate. But God's amazing grace makes it possible for us to refuse.
We are both spiritually and physically dead to sin.
Claim God's promise today.
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