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John 3:9-10
Those who have been born into God’s family do
not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t
keep on sinning, because they are children of God. So now we can tell who are
children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live
righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God.
There is a dangerous trend
these days for Christians to mingle the ways of the world with what was known
in Jesus’ times as The Way. Straying from our biblical roots, in other words. When
Jesus started His ministry on earth, He did not fit into the mould of any
existing religious party of the day – not of the Pharisees, who attached endless
human-made laws onto the Word of God that were passed on to subsequent
generations; nor of the Sadducees who headed the other way by denying whole
segments of Scripture, e.g. the existence of spirits, angels, the soul, the
afterlife, and the resurrection.
On the one hand,
contemporary Christianity has become guilty of the error of the Pharisees in
the sense that it has added countless humanly devised traditions to our way of
worship, smothering the active working of the Holy Spirit in our worship
services. On the other hand, it has fallen prey to the tradition of the
Sadducees, where copious amounts of New Testament practices have simply been
removed. The first century church was a living breathing organism, where every
member functioned with the divine life that dwelt in them through Holy Spirit, representing
Jesus Christ Himself. Their practices were solidly grounded in the teachings found
in the New Testament, where we find that the church held Spirit-led meetings
where member participation was encouraged; and was led by non-hierarchical
leadership – Jesus was the fully functioning head of His church.
Where did we as modern church
go wrong? In my opinion, one of the root causes of our derailment from The Way
is the lack of transformation among God’s people. Transformation implies much
more than mere change; it is a complete or major change according to the
dictionary. It cannot be window dressing only, it involves a radical change of
heart, mind, and life choices. The moment the newborn Christian becomes aware of
sin in his/her lifestyle, he/she will start procedures to break with that sin.
Period. No procrastination, no compromise. Our verse quoted above states that
they cannot wilfully keep on sinning, because they are now children of
God – truly born again. If they keep choosing to repeat a sin once becoming
aware of it, not sincerely repenting for their relapse every time they give in
to it but actually telling God that He does not have dominion over that area of
their lives - we can ask the question - are they born again? (Our definition of
sin is found in the Word of God, not based on man-made traditions or people’s
opinions.) Holy Spirit is faithful to point sin out to us by convicting us of
it, reminding us that sin harms us, not condemning us and handing out
punishment.
Points to
ponder: Examine your lifestyle choices – are you wilfully
choosing to sin? Do you have the attitude of “Oh well, I was born this way….” or “My grandfather did this, so did my father,
we cannot help it, it is in our family”, or any self-justification whatever? Be
transformed (Rom 12:2) in your mind. Let the gentle Holy Spirit show you
what needs to change in you, and then act upon it!
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