Obedience & Guilt

After my last couple of posts, I feel like I possibly left a dangerous idea in people’s minds...

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I’m concerned that after reading my posts of late, people could leave my page thinking, “so as long as I have faith in Jesus, it’s like I can do no wrong and don’t have to worry about any rules!”

If my post made you think that way, I’M SORRY!

That’s most definitely not the truth and believing that is a dangerous path to go down.

So I wanted to clarify...

Yes... because Jesus lived, was crucified, and rose from the grave, we are forgiven of our sins forever so long as we have sincere faith in Christ’s work on the cross, His life and His resurrection.

Yes... this means that once we are saved by faith, we cannot lose our salvation no matter how many times we stumble in sin.

BUT

No... Christ’s sacrifice doesn’t mean we have the freedom or encouragement to sin whenever and however much we’d like as long as we say He died and rose again for our sins.

No... this doesn’t mean we can ignore the Bible’s teaching and laws for our lives.

RATHER

Because... we are saved by faith through God’s gracious gift of Jesus, we should want to obey Him and desire to please Him.

Because... we are saved by faith we should not want to sin, we should long to live by His commands because we understand His ways are all in love for His children- us!

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Below I am going to post a fantastic description of this from a pastor named Alistair Begg. He summed it up wonderfully in one of his daily teachings on the Truth for Life program. (Which is easily accessible in an app you can download on your phone!)

Alistair said...

“The Christian believer is not under law, in that their salvation doesn’t depend on their obedience to the law. But that does not relieve the Christian believer from the obligation of keeping the law. The law of God shows us our sin and sends us to Jesus as the only solution to our sin. Jesus returns us to Gods law, not as the dynamic of our sanctification, not as the means of our justification, but as the framework for the work of God within our lives.”

PERFECTLY said.

Essentially, our souls are not saved through the keeping of the laws. Rather, the law is what we live by and it is what keeps us humble & running back to Jesus.

It’s so important to drive this into our heads— being a Christian doesn’t free you from the law because of your salvation. Because we love God, we follow His laws. His laws keep us, protect us, and give us freedom.

If you’re following God’s laws because you think that’s the only way He will accept you... please read about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection & what that means for you.

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Another crucial point to this topic is guilt. Satan actually uses guilt as a way to discourage Christians from obeying God. This is especially true for new believers who are just learning of God’s love. Satan knows we are fragile and easily discouraged- and he uses it against us. New believers- do not be discouraged. Even mature Christians still sin. We all fall short. We are all guilty on our own accounts- that’s why Jesus’ death and resurrection is so important to understand. In understanding and believing in His work on the cross, you will be prepared to fight off Satan’s attempts to discourage you.

If you’re a born again Christian and you feel so guilty after committing sin to the point you feel like you could lose your salvation or already have lost it, so “what’s the point of asking for forgiveness” - stop right there!

Jesus died and defeated death so that when we do sin and fall short of God’s glory, we can confidently go to Him for forgiveness, and be certain of our forgiveness, and continue living in obedience to the best of our ability. This goes for people who want to put their trust in Jesus and just haven’t done it yet- once you’ve repented and believed, this applies to you too.

God knows we will sin- we are human with sinful nature, He’s not naive to that fact. It’s easy for Christians- mature or new believers- to feel so guilty about disobeying God that they feel like they are too far gone. Friend, let me encourage you- if you have Christ, you have forgiveness, and you have the hope in Him that you will never lose God’s love or acceptance no matter how many times we mess up.

Once more, this doesn’t mean we should be willing to knowingly participate in a sinful lifestyle. Rather we should aim to obey God because He loves us and we love Him. We should live in obedience and confidence that God will never forsake us. So when we fail, we can cry out to Him.