It is hard for those who have not accepted Christ as their Savior to understand how those who have keep sinning after they have given their lives to God. It really isn’t hard to understand, though. This devotion will look at the question, why do Christians sin?
Nuggets
- God convicts us through the Holy Spirit.
Satan wants to try to get us to believe God will lose us.
I believe there are actually two components to why Christians continue to sin after they have asked Jesus to be their Redeemer. First, when I was younger, I somewhere heard that a lot of the verbs in the Bible have three different aspects: past, present, and future. Second, there is this little thing called free will. Let’s apply these to salvation.
Salvation
"If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (I Jn. 1: 6-7 ESV
God convicts us through the Holy Spirit.
God wants us to realize that our relationship with Him is broken and needs fixing. But He doesn’t make us to want to mend that relationship. He allows us to choose.
Glossary
That is why God sends the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit shows us a little about who God is — not all, but enough to show us that we need to admit that we are sinners, believe that Jesus is our Redeemer, and confess that we have asked God into our hearts and lives.
When I was younger, I was saved. I went forward in a church service, prayed a prayer admitting God was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and asked Him to to forgive me of my sins.
Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Perfectionmeans we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
Forgiveness is, when we ask, the act of God pardoning us because we have shown repentance for breaking His laws and commandments, which allows us to become holy as He is.
- Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to changing ourselves through obedience so that we no longer do the wrong things.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
That was a done deal. It happened in the past. I was changed. Second Corinthians 5:17 says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (ESV).
I am, but also I’m not a new creation. My salvation is assured so I am a new creature, but I am still trapped in this human body. I still have the capacity to sin. In fact, I John 1: 8-10 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (ESV). That also applies to those of us who walk with Christ. Every human being is going to not do all the do’s and will do some of the don’ts — even Christ followers.
If we are unbelievers, His Word is not in us. Look at verse 10 again: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (I Jn. 1: 10 ESV).
God’s Word is in believers. So, yes, those who have given their lives to Christ can still sin.
If we ourselves could do everything right and never mess up, we would have fixed ourselves. But then Jesus wouldn’t have had to come as our Redeemer. Good thing He did come because we can’t fix ourselves!
When I came forward in that service, I had a long way to go to get this all figured out (I still don’t have it all figured out!). Even though I grew up in church, I didn’t really know what it mean to be a follower of Christ. I didn’t know who God really was. He had to teach me what is expected of me.
But, hello, I still have my free will. Free will is the ability within us to make decisions, which determine actions that produce character.
God didn’t flip a switch and turn that off. So, every day I have to make the decision whether I am going to follow Him that day.
No, I don’t make the decision again whether I am saved or not. I can’t lose my salvation. John 6: 39 says, “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” (ESV). We are His, and He won’t lose us.
What Is Satan's Response?
Satan wants to try to get us to believe God will lose us.
Actually, Satan wants us to believe God will throw us away. The deceiver keeps tempting us to sin. That makes it even harder to do the do’s and don’t do the don’ts.
But God is saving me from my fresh sins every day and helping me as I learn about Him and struggle to do His Will. That is the present.
So, how is all of that reconciled with 1 John 3: 4-6: “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.” (ESV). Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it?
I think that is where the future part comes in. Once we hit the pearly gates — and only when — is that switch flipped. We really will be a new creation. We will be abiding in Him (physically/spiritually — whatever that is going to mean). We won’t be able to sin any more.
Why do Christians sin? Because we are human. When I was growing up, there was a saying: God isn’t finished with me yet. Good thing, because I want to become like Him, but He has a lot of things to work through.
Loving Heavenly Father. You are so patient with us. You knew long before Adam and Eve bit that a Plan of Salvation would be needed. You devised that plan. You knew the only way to redeem us was to send Your Son as our Savior. Thank You, Lord, that both of You loved us enough to accomplish that plan. Forgive us when our free will makes us chose to continue to sin. Help us to resist temptation. Prepare us for the time when we will no longer have the capacity to sin because we will be with You. Amen.
What do you think?
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