Willful Disobedience
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. No one is perfect. There are a lot of sayings to point out that people fail. We sin. We will not get to where we are free from sin, as long as we live in the flesh in this world. However, that is not the end of the story. We can't just willfully sin, and chalk it up to being human, or that we can't help it. We can help it.
There is huge difference between falling into a sin, and walking into it with our eyes wide open. It is one thing to be a weak young Christian, who is still struggling with some of our old habits, and a 20 year old Christian who decides to break God's Word, even though he knows better. When it comes to willful disobedience, God has to punish it severely. Think of the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. They willfully lied to the Holy Spirit and to their fellow believers. God struck them dead.
The truth is that we can be freed from our slavery to sin, if we trust Christ as Lord and Savior, and we grow in the power of the Spirit. We won't be fully perfect, but we will not willfully disobey God, because we have repented of sin, once and for all. We will not fall into sin very often, because we are controlled by the Spirit, and He warns us when we are about to be tempted, and we depend on Him to deliver us. Read Romans 6. It is plain that once we die to sin, we do not live in it any longer.
Willful disobedience should be a huge red flag in our lives that something is terribly wrong. We should make sure we are saved, and we should fully submit to the Lord, if we see an such behavior in our lives.
Tomorrow, I intend to read John 9-11.
There is huge difference between falling into a sin, and walking into it with our eyes wide open. It is one thing to be a weak young Christian, who is still struggling with some of our old habits, and a 20 year old Christian who decides to break God's Word, even though he knows better. When it comes to willful disobedience, God has to punish it severely. Think of the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. They willfully lied to the Holy Spirit and to their fellow believers. God struck them dead.
The truth is that we can be freed from our slavery to sin, if we trust Christ as Lord and Savior, and we grow in the power of the Spirit. We won't be fully perfect, but we will not willfully disobey God, because we have repented of sin, once and for all. We will not fall into sin very often, because we are controlled by the Spirit, and He warns us when we are about to be tempted, and we depend on Him to deliver us. Read Romans 6. It is plain that once we die to sin, we do not live in it any longer.
Willful disobedience should be a huge red flag in our lives that something is terribly wrong. We should make sure we are saved, and we should fully submit to the Lord, if we see an such behavior in our lives.
Tomorrow, I intend to read John 9-11.