Being a Sinner

Being a sinner is actually quite humiliating, isn’t it?  (I assume you also are… and can relate?)  I mean, no matter what I try – I still sin… every day even!  How about you?  After all these years!  I’ve been a born again Christian for 58 years already!  And I still find myself suddenly in the middle of where I didn’t want to be, didn’t plan to be, and didn’t want to do this.  What what what!? What!?

Angry once again.  Thinking damning thoughts.  Not wishing the best for someone.  Unloving ways.  What’s with that!?

I did not want this.  I did not plan this.  I did not want to be in this  (Romans 7:1-8:17).  So what do you do about it?

My ambition in life – is to please my God.  So, this sinning is not what I want.  And yet, I still sin!

⁹ Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. ¹⁰ For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for ^{[d Lit the things through the body]} his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.  – 2 Corinthians 5:verses 9-10

Christ “was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.” – Romans 7: verse 4.  We are here to bear good fruit – not bad!   So what’s with that?  What’s with all the sinning as believers?

The thing is, though God saves us in an instant, maturity is a lifelong process that takes time.  We have to learn to take it as it comes – and look to Christ moment by moment.  We don’t accept the sinning, but we accept that we are weak and in need of the power of God in our life!

It’s encouraging to me to see where I was, where I am, and where I am going — do a little self-examining once in awhile.  Examining the past, I can see that there has been incremental growth all along the way.  I am not in the same place as I was fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten… years ago.  Months, weeks, days – hours ago.  I have persevered and, moment by moment, day by day – I have chosen God’s ways instead of my natural ways.  And little by little I have grown.

if by the Spirit
you are putting to death
the deeds of the body,
you will live.
¹⁴ For all who are being led
by the Spirit of God,
these are sons of God.
¹⁵ For you have not received
a spirit of slavery
leading to fear again,
but you have received
a spirit of adoption as sons
by which we cry out,
“Abba! Father!”

– Romans 8: verses 13-15

All along the way, I have consciously chosen to not sin, to not let sin reign over me.

¹¹ Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,

¹³ and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness;

but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead,

and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

¹⁴ For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
– Romans 6:verses 11-14

There have been moments when I HAVE let sin reign.  That is why this verse is here!  The Apostle Paul wrote “do not let sin reign” — precisely because that is what we naturally will do if we do not choose God’s ways.  Moment by moment I choose to live God’s ways.  I choose to reject the sin, confess the sin, and start anew.

“But Christian maturity is not so much a matter of sinning less – it’s a matter of confessing more quickly!  Instead of wallowing…, one turns from sin more quickly, admitting to God “I have sinned”, I repent sooner, recognize sin and repent, confessing and renewing, and starting afresh.”  – from the article, The Life of Keith

So, each day I live with confidence that I am guided by His Holy Spirit, that I am a brand new creation of God – because I have been made brand new by God Himself.

Me. –brand new by God

I sojourn on earth.  This world is not my home.  When I fall, when I fail, when I digress – I get back up and start anew.  I get my cues from the Bible, learning God’s Way, and each day I practice being His. I am not my own.  Some day, sooner or later, I will have a new body not affected by this sinful world.  Oh what a day that will be!  But that day is future – not now.

²¹ I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. ²² For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, ²³ but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.  – Romans 7:21-25

I am just so grateful that I have victories in my moment by moment life – because of Christ, because I have chosen Christ!

“the mind
set on
the Spirit
is life and peace….”
– Romans 8:6

FOR MORE:

Don´t Let It

The Life of Keith

Explaining “Natural”

Oh what a day that will be!