Yesterday: Can Christians sin unknowingly? No. Today: Is it normal for Christians to sin everyday? Let’s look.

²³ Yet I am always with you;
    you hold me by my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
    and afterward you will take me into glory.
Psalm 73:23-24

There are some foundational statements that we can make concerning sin and our relationship to it.

1. Sin is willful rebellion against God. It’s a conscious act.
2. Christians live with the presence of the Holy Spirit in them. This relationship is what makes us Christians.
3. Sin used to define us; now, it shapes us.

Let me explain. Everyone is born with a sin nature, i.e. we all have the poison of rebelliousness in us. We all need to come to the cross for healing and life. Once we do, Christ’s blood cleanses us from all of the poison in us. We are given Christ’s righteousness and will never have to worry about being poisoned in that way again. Our relationship with sin has changed. It used to kill us and keep us from running to God, but now God uses it to train us to be holy. Because our desires have changed and have become His desires, our sin drives us to His throne for mercy and grace,

¹⁶ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16

We all have weak areas in our lives that we fight daily. We have expectations of ourselves that are difficult–if not impossible–to meet. When do our “failures” become sin? When we deliberately turn away from the Spirit’s direction. We ignore His warning and continue anyway. But, what if we don’t actually receive a warning from the Spirit? It could be that our expectations are not His expectations. When we fail at our own expectations, it’s not necessarily sin. We would do well to go to Him with these expectations and see if He even wants us to have them! When we do deliberately turn and sin, the conviction of the Spirit is immediate and specific with instructions for what to do next. We then go to our heavenly Father for an attitude adjustment. The Spirit corrects our thinking and we grow. It’s known as the victorious Christian life.

If we go through the day and do not deliberately turn away from the Lord in rebellion, we can honestly say that we have not sinned that day. Jesus told us that we need only be concerned with one day at a time. When we do sin, we have this promise:

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 1 John 2:1

Notice the word, “if.” Not, “when,” but, “if.” The expectation is that we live for Jesus Christ by dying to self and following Him closely. A great memory verse is,

²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

Tomorrow: Sinners saved by grace; an apt description of Christians?

Abba, You are so wise! You took what once killed us and have made it the very tool that You use to make us holy. May I live in the knowledge that I am righteous to You because You have made me so, and that I can be holy even as You are–with a lot of help from You! It is my goal, Abba. Amen.