SHALL WE CONTINUE TO SIN THAT GRACE MAY ABOUND? (II)

Greetings to you beloved. We continue with the second part of this topic. I explained in my earlier write up that whoever believes in Christ ought not to yield himself to sin but to righteousness. However, it will be noteworthy to point out here that living a life of righteousness isn't something to be achieved in a day. It's a gradual process that takes your entire life time to achieve. Another important thing to note is that your receiving Christ and being Born again does not mean that you can't sin again. Infact, so far you are in this flesh, you sin till you die. We all make mistakes till we die. This is a fact some people do not know. That you are now born again is not a guarantee for you to continue sinning, neither is it a guarantee that you will not sin again. The tendency of a born again sinning is 100%. But there is a difference between him and the man who has not received Christ or been born again. If you have not accepted Christ to be reborn, you are a sinner by default. When you say something is by default it means that thing came or was created or developed alongside with the value or feature you are describing. For example, when you buy a laptop and boots it for the first time, you will discover that a background has already been assigned to the laptop. Automatically, a window or background installed by the programmers will show. It doesn't matter whether you liked the background or not but that is what you will always see each time you boot the system until you decide by yourself to change the background to your taste. This is exactly the state of everyone born into this world who have not received or accepted Christ in his life. The default background each of us carries when born in this world is that of Adam's sin. So by default we are all sinners right from birth. So we all share the sin of Adam and Eve( disobedience). So your being a sinner today has nothing to do with the kind of life you are living but it has its root from sharing/ being a partaker of the sin of Adam. So, the sinful life you are living today is simply a manifestation of the default sin you came with. I pray you unuderstand.

On the side of the born again man, he is no longer a sinner by default because some changes has been made. Just like the newly bought laptop, the born again man was once a sinner by default until he accepted Jesus Christ into his life and a change was made in him. That change removed him from his default state of a sinner to a default state of a righteous man. Assuming the laptop came with a red colored background and was later changed to a blue background, whenever you boot the system again, what you will see is now the blue and not the red colour background. This is how it is with the born again man. Why did I go this far using this illustration? It is for you to understand the difference between a person that have accepted Christ and the one who holds him in unbelieve. The believer is a righteous man irrespective of what he did and the unbeliever is a sinner irrespective of what he does.

Whoever accepts Jesus into his heart, has received the forgiveness of his sins and when sins has been forgiven, he is an adopted son of the kingdom of God. Col: 1:13- 14 says" who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear son in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins." Rom:8:1 says" there is therefore, no condemnation on those who are in Christ Jesus." Ephesians 2:19 also says" Now therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and of the house hold of God."

Now, as a righteous man, you must walk in righteousnes. You must live and pattern your life according to the life of the new kingdom where you are now a citizen. However, in living out this righteous life, you might still see yourself fall into sin. You may still exhibit your old way of life but the truth is that, it doesn't take you back to your former state of being a sinner by default. I know questions as to whether this is true is running through your mind now but let me explain something to you. I recall giving you an illustration of a person who was once a Nigerian citizen but later became a German citizen by nationalization. You see, when a person changes his citizenship, it will take him time to adapt to the way of life in his new country. Now when the Nigerian man becomes a German, there are possibilities of him, visiting African restaurants to eat, speaking his Nigerian language and at times dresses like them and even think like them. He will do these things because he will, at a time, have the desires of tasting those things. He will continue that way until he comes to realize that he isn't a Nigerian on vacation but now a pure German. Till he realizes that the day he nationalized and obtained a certificate of a German citizen was the day he rejected being a Nigerian and at such nothing Nigerian should be seen in him, he will continue to combine German and Nigerian ways of life.

This is likely what happens to anyone who gets born again. You may see yourself after accepting Jesus exhibiting some of the life styles of the earthly kingdom like anger, jealousy, envy, hatred, backbiting, fornication, adultery, lies , greed etc. But you must realize that the day you repented and accepted Christ was the day you rejected all the works of darkness manifesting itself in the way of sinful deeds. But like I said, it is a gradual process, not something you achieve once. In order to do this, you have to constantly feed yourself with the word of God. You must have to stay in the word to overcome sin from pulling you down.

Apostle Paul was able to teach us what to do in the face of incorporating our old way of life with the new life we have received in Christ Jesus. He says in

Col: 3:5-10 " you must put to death, then the earthly desires at work in you such as sexual immorality, indecency, lust, evil passion and greed( for greed is a form of idolatry). Because of such things, God's anger will come upon those who do not obey him. At one time you yourself used to live according to such desires when your life was dominated by them, but now, you must get rid of all these things; anger, passion and hateful feelings. No insult or obscene talk must ever come from your lips. Do not lie to one another for you have taken off the old self with its habits and have put on the new self."

This is Paul speaking to us the believers concerning the life we ought to live as those that have been saved. He said, you must put to death such things. This shows you have a role to play after being born again. It is the role of getting rid of everything you do that does not glorify God. Asking you to put to death is a fact that Paul recognizes that we have been given power over sin. Before receiving Jesus, sin had power over you. That is why you kept doing things you would rather not want to do. But now that you have accepted Christ, you have been given power over sin. That is to say that the desire to sin will always come but you can now resist it through the help of the spirit that now lives in you. You can't do this by yourself but only through the help of the holy spirit in you. That is why it is paramount that you study the word of God all times because the spirit can only survive and function properly when he is been fed with the word. You must have to stay in the word to know what it says concerning any situation. The word of God contains all the answers to everything you will encounter in this life. It calls only for your careful look out for them through studying the word. Studying is different from reading the word. In reading, you just read and go. But in studying, you read, meditate and practice the word; that is the difference. It's only when you study that the word becomes real to you. So as a believer in Christ Jesus, you have not been called to continue with your sinful way of life but called to a holy and righteous living. In 1 Timothy 4 : 7, Paul admonished us saying " ...keep yourself in training for a godly life." This shows you that it's a continuous exercise. We ought to practice righteousnes always. it is your duty as someone that has been saved. Paul said you have taken off the old self with its habits and have put on the new self. So, walk in the newness of this life for which you have been called. In my next publication I will X-RAY these habits of our old self and new self. SEE YOU SOON! LOVE YOU DEEPLY.