Romans 6:1-2
By BunGirl
@BunGirl (2638)
United States
May 7, 2007 7:34am CST
"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?"
Have you ever met someone who claims to be a Christian, yet is unrepentant about the sins in their life? I'm sure we all have. It's human nature to say, "God's going to forgive me anyway, so I might as well do what I want." As Christians though, we are called to put aside that sinful human response and learn to obey God's commands.
When we become Christians, we are called born-again. "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3) Our old, sinful selves have been put to death and we are a new creation in Christ. This means we can't return to our old dead lives, but instead we get to start fresh.
Now, of course there will still be sin in our lives from time to time. No one will be perfected here on the earth. That will only happen in heaven. What this does mean though is that we should strive toward perfection. Every day, more and more, we should be relying on God to help us overcome temptation and banish sin. We shouldn't take God's grace for granted because although there is nothing He can't forgive, we should desire to please Him.
2 people like this
4 responses
@gewcew23 (8007)
• United States
7 May 07
Thank you for another uplifting discussion. I think that we all need to remember that once we are saved we can't just go back to drinking, partying, and having whatever kind of relationships on Saturday and then go back to church and say oh well God will forgive me. That is not what salvation and forgiveness is about. Yes we will all sin sometime in our lives like you said we aren't perfect yet.
2 people like this
@terilee79720 (3621)
• United States
7 May 07
"He is without sin, cast the first stone."
So many people either don't know this verse or forget it. People who claim to be Christians (and there seem to be a lot of them)often use certain versus to make sense of their lives. Some of the twist the verses to fit and use them to justify their actions.
I use to consider myself a Christian, but with such a broad sweep use of the word anymore, I had much rather consider my description to be "God Fearer" or "God Follower".
I'm still striving toward that day, relying on God to be my provider and not some Secret that seems to be new.
There's nothing new under the sun.....
Pleasing Him should be our main desire, but alas, I fear it's not.
@BunGirl (2638)
• United States
7 May 07
That whole story is fascinating to me. Through the entire thing Jesus is drawing or writing in the dirt. I've always wondered what He was writing. I had a friend who suggested He may have been writing out some of the commandments that members of the crowd have broken. Of course, I guess I'll never really know until I get a chance to ask Him!
1 person likes this
@AmbiePam (85476)
• United States
7 May 07
I agree. It is sometimes very hard to watch people who claim to be Christians curse and frequent bars, yet they tell anyone who listens they are a child of God. And technically we all are, but until we accept His free gift of salvation, all that we say is rubbish. And those who are not saved, point to the pretenders and say, if that is being a Christian, then there is no difference between us. Although all Christian will stumble, the great part is that God catches us. He sets us back up and we try again, to get closer to Him and closer to others who might be influenced by our example.
@wordbased (1)
• Canada
8 May 07
Bungirl,
One of the things that I have figured out is that it would be better to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit instead of just "doing" something just because you, or me, or even the bible says. The truth is that if we would follow the bible completely, we would have churches filled with one-eyed, one-armed people. I would be overjoyed if people would really respond to God the way He wants them to. However, I cannot make any demands on them because I don't have the right to do so. That right is VERY slow in coming and I have just a handful of Christian friends that are close enough to me to allow confrontation to be effective. (going both ways)
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