Jesus told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” If Jesus Christ can’t keep us from sin then His grace is NOT sufficient for us. (See 2 Corinthians 12:9). Some say their flesh is too weak to continue long without giving in to some sin, but Jesus says His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Those truly having God’s powerful Holy Spirit resting upon us have the very same spiritual power Jesus had during His thirty-three years in the flesh.
“God has said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk in them'” (2 Corinthians 6:16). With God dwelling in us and walking in us, we can’t keep from sinning?! Get real!
We are urged to perfect holiness in the fear of God (See 2 Corinthians 7:1). That means to make holiness complete, total. We are not exhorted to do the impossible. Confessing the same old sins day after day is ridiculous.
“Our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5). Is God’s grace toward us insufficient to overcome all sin?
“Now thanks be unto God, who causes us ALWAYS to triumph in Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:14). Whenever we sin we have turned away from Christ and gone the way of the flesh – something we did not have to do as we are assured that “there has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able to bear, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it (without ever giving in to that temptation and sinning)” (I Corinthians 10:1).
“What He has promised He is able also to perform” (Romans 4:21), and God has promised to deliver us from every temptation to sin. Peter confidently assured us “The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations…” (See 2 Peter 2:9). Victory does not depend on our strength but in God’s power!
“Let EVERYONE who names the name of Christ DEPART FROM INIQUITY (i.e., SIN).” (2 Timothy 2:19). God’s sustaining and strengthening grace is stronger than any human lust.
Peter writes that God’s “divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). But that is a false statement if He cannot keep us from sin. Peter further states that it is “them that walk after the flesh” who “cannot cease from sin” (See 2 Peter 2:10, 14). And he says such are spiritual adulterers. And, since they cannot cease from sin, they don’t think you can either.
Paul’s letters are not the only epistles carnal men twist to their own spiritual destruction. They do the same with John when they take I John 1:8 out of its context and use that verse to excuse their sin and knock down all the foregoing verses of scripture. That verse says, “If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” But look at the context. “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness (hence, sin), we lie, and do not (speak or know) the truth” (verse 6, I John chapter 1). If we say that we have no sin, WHILE WALKING IN DARKNESS, we deceive ourselves. If a believer claims God does not see his, or her, sins or count such sins against them, they deceive themselves. But I John 1:8 does NOT say a believer cannot stop sinning. How absurd! Two verses later John writes, “My little children, these things write I unto you THAT YOU SIN NOT” (I John 2:1). And in the following chapter he says, “Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself EVEN AS HE (CHRIST) IS PURE” (I John 3:3). And how pure is Christ? He did not sin! And it is John who remembered that Christ said, “Whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin, and the servant of sin abides not in the house (household of God, family of God) forever…If the Son therefore shall make you free (from sin), you shall be free indeed” (John 8:34-36).
Again John writes, “He (Jesus) was manifested to take away our sins” – not merely to pay the penalty or suffer the punishment for our sins, but “to take away our sins” (See I John 3:5). And in the next verse John said “Whosoever abides in Him SINS NOT!” (verse 6).
Why can’t those who profess to serve and represent Jesus Christ rightly divide the Word of God? Why must they diligently search through the scriptures looking for a verse here or a verse there that they can lift out of its context in order to support their sinful, ungodly ways and warped theology???? Someday they will answer to Jesus Christ for their ungodliness and errors.
“Awake to righteousness, and sin NOT (STOP SINNING!), for some have not the knowledge of God (willfully forgetting that Jesus Christ said over and over “Go, and sin NO MORE”). I speak this to your shame.” (I Corinthians 15:34).
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley