Monday, March 28, 2016

Free 2I am a sinner.  When one sins, it is because he has broken God’s law.  Justice demands a severe penalty for that breakage (Romans 6:23)!  I am not capable of living a perfect life (or without sin), no matter how hard I try (Romans 7:15).  If I am honest with myself, I admit my sins (Romans 3:10, 23).  If I am convinced that I must live a perfect life to be saved, my sins will make a fool of me and expose me as a failure.  Failure paves our path with despair.  Despair robs our hope.  Without hope one is left helpless.  Paul cried out, “What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?”  (Romans 7:25).  Paul recognized that Jesus was the only answer to his sin problem.

When one becomes a Christian, he must not continue in sin, but he does sin.  There is a difference!  Some preachers have left the impression that perfection is possible if one is spiritual enough.  You are told, “If you sin, it is because you did not trying hard enough!”  Audiences are told that sin is not in the body of Christ.  Jesus is sinless.  Therefore, those who are in his body, when they sin, are no longer allowed to remain.  They are cut off and lost until repentance and a prayer asking for forgiveness is offered.  Then, they are readmitted back into the sinless body of Jesus until the next infraction.  Paul told the Corinthians, “Now you are the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:27).  Yet they were the most error riddled body of believers in the New Testament.  Why would he address them as “the body” if their sin, which he was attempting to correct, had ejected them out of it until they followed his instructions which they were reading for the first time?  How can one who is outside the body of Christ be in it?

Although there is no sin in Christ’s body, it is not because all who are guilty of sinning have been expelled until they ask for re-entrance.  Yes, when one sins, he goes to God in prayer asking for forgiveness.  However, if he is outside the body of Christ, he is no longer where the blood is.  If he is not where the blood is, there is no forgiveness.  He is an alien sinner because he is outside Jesus Christ.  If he is an alien, he must be buried with Christ to enter that life (Romans 6:3-6).   According to that teaching, he is outside of Christ praying to get back inside, where the blood is located, blood that could not keep him from being kicked out, only when he is readmitted!  Readmitted, over and over and over and over again.  As members of the body of Christ, we have been painted with the blood of Jesus and that “paint job” keeps us in His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).  That blood keeps on cleansing us because we are on the inside (1 John 1:7-10)!  That’s why there is no sin in the body of Christ!  We are kept continually cleansed!

Jesus’ blood is to make sinners righteous.  When God adds a person to the saved, it isn’t a revolving door experience of “in and out.”  “Added again, out again.”  “Added again, out again”!  Jesus’ blood is not an entrance only application applied upon readmission!  Then, after reaffirmation, you are on your own until the next time you sin.  When that happens, out you go again!  After you repent and confess, you are added to the saved again and Jesus’ blood is applied to you.  However, that blood doesn’t protect you, so in a few minutes or maybe a few hours you sin again and it’s “goodbye salvation, hello Satan.”  Is it any wonder that some never find peace nor happiness in such a belief?  They don’t know if they are coming or going!

When one recognizes the origin of his forgiveness, understands who he inherits his righteousness from, and how God keep him pure, he will not only ask for forgiveness but be thankful because he knows he already has it because of Jesus!

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1-2)