Monday: All Have Sinned
Read Romans 3:23. Why is this message so easy for us as Christians to believe today? At the same time, what could cause some people to question the truthfulness of this text?
http://www.goodsalt.com/details/pcmas0028.html?r=ssnet
Amazingly enough, some people actually challenge the idea of human sinfulness, arguing that people are basically good. The problem, however, stems from a lack of understanding of what true goodness is. People can compare themselves to someone else and feel good about themselves. After all, we can always find someone worse than ourselves to compare ourselves with. But that hardly makes us good. When we contrast ourselves to God, and to the holiness and righteousness of God, none of us would come away with anything other than an overwhelming sense of self-loathing and disgust.
Romans 3:23 also talks about “the glory of God.” The phrase has been variously interpreted. Perhaps the simplest interpretation is to give the phrase the meaning it has in 1 Corinthians 11:7 “He [man] is the image and glory of God” (RSV). In Greek the word for “glory” may be considered as loosely equivalent to the word for “image.” Sin has marred the image of God in humans. Sinful humans fall far short of reflecting the image or glory of God.
Read Romans 3:10-18. Has anything changed today? Which of those depictions best describes you, or what you would be like were it not for Christ in your life?
As bad as we are our situation is not hopeless. The first step is that we acknowledge our utter sinfulness and also our helplessness in and of ourselves to do anything about it. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring about such conviction. If the sinner does not resist Him, the Spirit will lead the sinner to tear away the mask of self-defense, pretense, and self-justification and to cast himself or herself upon Christ, pleading His mercy: “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!”(Luke 18:13, NASB).
| When was the last time you took a good, hard, cold look at yourself, your motives, your deeds, and your feelings? This can be a very distressing experience, can’t it? What’s your only hope? |
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When I take a look at my deeds, thoughts and actions, I'm nothing but a poor sinner. Only Jesus Christ and Him alone can save me from my sins. I'm a sinner and have fallen short of God's glory.
Em Cristo você é mais do que vencedora. In Christ you are more than winner.
Yes, I see who I am, a sinner, deserving no grace, but i serve a God that is bigger in heart who loves me. He has the power to save and I am not a lost case in his hands!
Amen!!! Repent and surrender= victory in Jesus
Romans 7:24-25New Living Translation (NLT)
24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
Marlin, while chapter 7 ends there, thank God Paul's thought does not end there. Paul goes on to say,
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.
Romans 8:1-2 NLT
Question? If a person belongs to Christ Jesus and that the power of the life-giving spirit freed a person from the power of sin, would that means that this person cannot sin no more? People claimed that they are Christians but actually not.How do we ascertain that we already belong to Christ Jesus? Is there a certain level or qualifications for a person to be considered a true Christian? Like in the school that if we completed all the required curriculum then we graduated?
You must daily (hourly) surrender and resurrender to Jesus. Exams are every night in your knees when you ask God for forgiveness for today and victory for tomorrow. The term is Sanctification and it is the process of a lifetime.
Dear Linen,
Christ never removes our power of choice. So the answer is "No" to
You may know that you belong to Christ when you have surrendered your life to Him and asked Him to live in you by His Spirit. But this is not a once-in-a-lifetime deal. We must surrender to Him every morning and seek His guidance throughout the day.
It takes time to develop a relationship with Jesus, just like it takes time to develop and earthly friendship:
* Time to talk with Him in prayer.
* Time to listen to Him through His Word and the voice of the Holy Spirit in your mind.
* Time to do things together. That means in your daily life seeking to do the things that Jesus would do.
A relationship with Christ, since He is God, also includes time spent in personal worship and community worship (church).
When you faithfully seek to do this, you can be assured that you are safe in Him, and no one can take you out of His care, even if you slip and fall. Just reach up to Him, and He will pick you up again.
It is not the individual sins or good deeds that determine our salvation but the direction of our lives. He is interested in your heart. If we are moving closer to Jesus every day, we may know that we are in a saving relationship with Him.
No, there's no required curriculum and graduation. 😉 You belong to Jesus the instant you ask Him to come into your heart. And you stay belonging to Him as long as you remain surrendered to Him. He doesn't disown you when you stumble into sinful behavior any more than a parent would disown a child that falls down. 🙂 But if you choose to continue in sinful behavior, you are choosing to turn your back on Him, and He will not force you to be saved.
Christ and Christ alone can deliver me from this body of sin. Thank God for his amazing gift of salvation!
Esther Moran
Too frequently we dwell on our sins and shortcomings. We have all sinned and we continue to miss the mark. However, by God's grace there is growth, progress and a diminishing of those things that easily beset us. As we meditate for longer periods on the ministry, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; as we study His teachings; as we examine His methods, we will develop a joy of unspeakable magnitude for Him.
Let us focus on where we going, not on where we have come from. If Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith, then He is the also the sustainer until we get to the finish line.
One of my favorite passages of Scripture is 1 Cor 6:9-11 - "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. "
But here is the real encouraging part:
1 Cor 6:11 - "And such WERE some of you. But you WERE WASHED, but you were SANCTIFIED, but you were JUSTIFIED in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Paul is talking about something that HAS happened in the life of the believer, not a future hope.
If we have accepted God's invitation, we can be recipients of that washing, sanctifying and justifying.
Let us come boldly to the throne of grace and receive what God has planned for us.
Am giving God thanks for these inspiring series of lessons. Sometimes I felt so far from God, but thank God for his amazing grace.Though sinful and wretched, I can come to him just as I am,asking him to forgive me and cleanse me from all that is unlike him. All is not lost. I can now rejoice and do what is right.
Let us ask God for the baptism of the Holy spirit daily, so that our minds can be transformed and live above the world of sin.Thank you for the cross Lord.Thank you for the price you've paid.
God is good he fills the missing pieces of our hopelessness with his loving kindness were it not for his tender mercies we would have been consumed in our sins, yet he still yearns for us to turn to him wholly then we can be transformed in Character not through our works but by putting on Christ and beholding him!
Some of our thoughts are so terrible that we thank God they are hidden. The human heart is desperately wicked. Who shall deliver us from this body of sin? We thank God for Christ