i always find myself messed up in sin. like i cant get away and im almost drawn to it. :( i hate sin, it ruins my life. i feel like god hates me bc i keep messing up. =/
I think it is important for you to know that we all deal with the struggle of sin and the temptation to sin. The Bible says that we all fall short of the glory of God. I will keep you in my prayers Ellie. I will say that I have dealt with some people that struggled with drug use and have spent time in juvy halls and done some jail time and they wanted to build a strong relationship with God yet whenever they got back in their "old" neighborhood they found themselves eventually hanging around their old "friends" and falling into the same old traps as before. My advice to you is...since you are aware of your struggles try to grasp an understanding of why you struggle or what causes you to struggle and try your best to distance yourselves from those things that cause you to be tempted. Also, find people that you can go to when you are feelign tempted to sin. People that will help guide you. You might even be able to find some on here you can go to, however I think it would be better to have someone you could personally go to. Again, I will keep you in my prayers and just remember that God knows your heart and will be merciful to those who truly repent. Be blessed!!
AS you probably know, the Apostle Paul described this very conflict in his own life.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me, that is, in my lower self, nothing good has its home; for while the will to do right is present with me, the power to carry it out is not.
Rom 7:19 For what I do is not the good thing that I desire to do; but the evil thing that I desire not to do, is what I constantly do.
Rom 7:20 But if I do that which I desire not to do, it can no longer be said that it is I who do it, but the sin which has its home within me does it.
Rom 7:21 I find therefore the law of my nature to be that when I desire to do what is right, evil is lying in ambush for me.
Rom 7:22 For in my inmost self all my sympathy is with the Law of God;
Rom 7:23 but I discover within me a different Law at war with the Law of my understanding, and leading me captive to the Law which is everywhere at work in my body--the Law of sin.
Rom 7:24 (Unhappy man that I am! who will rescue me from this death-burdened body?
Rom 7:25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!) To sum up then, with my understanding, I--my true self--am in servitude to the Law of God, but with my lower nature I am in servitude to the Law of sin.
I believe it is wrong for Believers to think of themselves as sinners. Sinners are those people who don't know God and live their lives in sin. Believers are those who live their lives in the Spirit but struggle with their old nature that wants to continue living in sin. That's what Paul, the man that wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, was struggling with in his own life. When you find yourself in this struggle remember Paul's words, "Thank God for rescuing me from myself through His son, Jesus Christ." When you sin, pray and confess and repent. Even if you have to pray and repent of the same sin several times a day, week or month do it. Study your Bible to learn about the Nature of God and you will find He is merciful and does not condemn you. He wants to hold you and teach you to obey Him so that you will be blessed by Him. He is very interested in making you into someone useful to Him in ministry. You can be the missionary you want to be because He wants you to be a missionary too. He probably put the desire in your heart to serve Him. Ask God to give you strength to overcome your flesh. Eventually you will find that you are better equipped to overcome sin, but remember, the struggle will last until the day you are in your Father's house and in His arms.
I know exactly how you feel Ellie... I think we all do. Yes, we are supposed to "repent" from our sins, which means to turn away from them... Yet I too find myself returning to them like a dog to its vomit...
However, I know God loves me... and yes, even likes me. I just hate to know that I disappoint the heart of God.
Praise Him for His grace, mercy, and forgiveness! We are not worthy of it, yet He gives freely!
All I know is to depend on Him as greatly as possible and to keep pushing through.
Now, I have a lot to respond to and I don't quite know if, because I don't have all of the replies in front of me, I will misconstrue what some of you have said.
You struggle with sin.
OK, we all do.
I don't mean to trivialize your struggle, I don't. But I do have a few thoughts about THE struggle. I think that the first question that I'll ask is, "How much did grace cost you?"
If you say nothing, then I am quite concerned for you.
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship. It is merely a tool of absolution that the church has successfully marketed to you and you bought it.
Cheap grace means the justification of sin rather than the justification of the sinner. To say that God's grace abounds to you because you said a prayer is preposterous.
One of the first things that you must realize is value. Value only exists because of choice and only the things that you choose have value. If you choose sin over God then you value sin more than you value God.
Cheap grace, the blanket that covers all of our wrongdoings, is Christianity without discipline and without being disciplined.
Salvation doesn't begin with a prayer.
It begins because you made a decision.
You decided that you value God's way over your own. Maybe you didn't quite know the depths of what you were deciding. Jesus talks about counting the cost at the end of Luke 14 and here's one of his illustrations: For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it� lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, �This man began to build and was not able to finish�?
I think that an important exercise for you would be to find out how God describes Himself in scripture and then to act accordingly. Go back and read Exodus. What sparked God to take action on behalf of the Israelites? How does God introduce Himself to Moses, Israel, and Pharaoh?
Here's another thought on Grace: Why would God make cheap for you what cost Him everything?
It most defiantly costs to follow Christ. Always has, always will.
In Ephesians 2:8-9 it says:
8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith�and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God� 9not by works, so that no one can boast.
but at the same time James 2:17 says:
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
I think it is good to point out that it is not by our own power, but we do have a choice and decision to make, like you said.
No, we should not sin so "God's grace can abound." Paul teaches against that himself.
I will agree that we have a huge problem in the American Church that many think, "oh, God will forgive me, so I'll just sin anyway." This is horrible thinking, and I would probably question how seriously they took their relationship with Christ.
Yes, we must count the cost, but we must also be weary of following a works-based belief system. For works will not save us either.
In Matt 7: 22-23:
Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
I know what it means to count the cost, I will hopefully be leaving my home, family, and friends in a few months following the call that God put on my life. But moving to the other side of the world isn't what keeps me close to my Lord. I could go and share with every person I come in contact with, but what would it mean if I didn't know Him and carry on a relationship with Him?
We are saved by grace through faith. but faith without works is dead. Jesus said that we will be known by our fruit, right?
So, we should also examine our own "fruit" and lives. Maybe if we see that we aren't counting the cost, it is time to draw closer to Him, the fruit should come out of faith, not for the sake of being saved... .but because we are saved.
Hating & resenting sin is number ONE step to get rid of it, repenting and admitting our weakness will help to resist it .
We all stumble and fall my dear,the Scripture says: " As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one".
" For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God".
Our Lord, is a loving father, He doesn't hate u or any of His children even when they mess up, but when/ if we fall, we must quickly confess and ask to be strengthened. "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me. " Mic 7:8
What we need is to be sober, rooted & built up in Him. Just keep your eyes on the Lord, u will be more than conqueror through Him.
The answer, "Hating and resenting sin is number one step" to me is useless.
This, to me, is the answer of parrots.
Tell me, what is sin? What is virtue? What is Love? What is Grace? And What is Faith?
To say that sin is wrong because God said that it's wrong is stupid.
Who is God that He should arbitrarily dictate rules and who am I that I should follow them?
Is sin wrong because God says it's wrong; hated because God says it's to be hated?
God also told Abraham to sacrifice his son. The son of promise... through whom Abraham would become the father of many. The representation of destiny.
God told this to Abraham. The same Abraham that bartered with God over Sodom and Gomorrah.
...but Abraham had a choice.
Could Abraham have become the father of faith had he not raised the knife?
No. The only way that he could achieve such an inheritance was "show his faith by his works."
Yes, a works based system is something to be leery of indeed!
But MY God takes action on behalf of the poor, the weak, the hurting, the oppressed, He sees when someone suffers injustice and He knows when you cry into your pillow in the middle of the night.
Why did God choose Moses in the first place?
Moses had a compulsive intolerance to injustice.
Does God hate sin because it is unholy? or is it unholy because God hates it?
Think about this question and answer me. I truly look forward to your responses.
It's not possible to be perfect right now. God isn't offering literal deliverance from pain and suffering, He's offering to change you and give you hope. You do have to hate sin and try to get rid of it...but it's your attitude and your heart, not your success at being perfect. If it were possible for us to be perfect through our works then Jesus would not have had to die. But the bible doesn't call it a battle and a fight for no reason. You have to fight sin...and if you honestly do fight it then Jesus wins the battle for you....you can't win anything on your own. Just keep fighting and don't give up.
"Willing to lie about how we met..." really theDave? your a piece of work aren't you? i cannot throw any stones, Lord knows i'm not perfect but brother. please.... just... stop acting like a insolent child. you sound bitter. jealous of men who have managed to encourage thought time and time again through their knowledgeable words. i want to encourage you to learn from example, instead of trying to be someone's knight and shinning armour by trying to belittle and slander well meaning persons who have who are human just like the rest of us. God bless.
