Sins We Are Born Into, and Must Overcome

[missmuffet]

We are all born with a sinful nature. We all must be born again. 

[JTC]

33 minutes ago, JustPassingThru said:

The Word tells us we commit sins, trespasses and iniquities, sinning is when we are trying and fail, trespasses are when we know better, but do it intentionally

Friend, I was born again some 40 yrs ago. If you expect sins to just vanish with no effort from you, you're dreaming. I had 1 but only 1 sin vanish the day I was saved. I thank God for that. Now understand that if we aren't born again we will never overcome sins. So perhaps there's some miscommunication here. In my 40 yrs experience I've known anyone who gave up most of their sins without some effort. But I once knew of several people who made that claim, haven't seen them since.

  We have to make some effort even if it's just the will & desire to not commit that particular sin.

[JustPassingThru]

13 minutes ago, JTC said:

We have to make some effort even if it's just the will & desire to not commit that particular sin.

Our will and our desire is exactly what keeps the power of the Holy spirit from being beneficial in our lives.

Since we have been crucified with Christ:

...knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for he that hath died is justified from sin.   Rom 6:6-7

The Word says we died with Christ, ...that means dead men don't have a will or desires, ...doesn't it, ...have you visited any cemeteries lately and found and of the dead there with a will or desires?

Yes our old Adamic nature is still alive in us, but:

...reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Rom 6:11

There's the answer, reckon ourselves dead to sin, ...dead means dead, ...so dead that we can't make any effort, ...we relinquish all authority in our lives, ...especially our will and desires, to the authority of the Holy Spirit and He will work through us to overcome the old Adamic nature, ...that old Adamic nature was defeated 2,000 years ago, so what is the use in trying to defeat something today that has already been defeated by Christ way before we were even born?

Kinda sheds some light on how much more Jesus accomplished for us as our Savior than just taking us to Heaven, ...doesn't it...

Lord bless

[johnthebaptist]

1 hour ago, JTC said:

You are so right. I've seen in my life, and the lives of others what happens when Christians are taught sin doesn't matter because we're forgiven. One brother who was also a good friend would just keep repeating "there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus". Yeah I know. I'm not going to say what happened in this man's life 20 yrs later.

I am going to point out that we all will stand before the Lord after death. Some assume Jesus has no choice but to admit them into His Kingdom simply because they confessed His name. I think Jesus does have a choice. And this is another reason to try and eliminate as many sins as we can. It is a good idea to make our salvation sure  by obeying the Lord. I often worry about my old friend, I haven't heard from him in 19 yrs. I will tell you all this, 19 yrs ago he was sad because he could no longer feel any closeness from the Lord. Maybe that was due to living 20 yrs with a grave sin in his life. I didn't know this yet 19 yrs ago but I do now.

  In another place Jesus said, "we are the salt of the earth". What is salt? It's something that makes food taste better. We are supposed to make life on earth more livable for others. Then Jesus said, "but if the salt loses it's saltiness...". How can it lose the saltiness? I say one way is constant sinning. This then is another reason to avoid sin. We can't be very effective Christians with a ton of sins. You can't be a very good witness for Christ if you have many sins.

   JtB, is there any probability that you can convince your pastor to preach on all the reasons sin is hazardous to life? As we can see, the reasons are for both, this life & the next.

In my church, the United Methodist Church, the huge issue is homosexuality - it is tearing the church apart. I got my pastor to promise he wouldn't speak on the subject. That's the best I can hope for, I think. Our last pastor would keep telling us there was nothing wrong with homoexuality, jamming that down our throats when we had come to worship the Lord. We keep getting the message that everyone is welcome in our church - I have no problem with that - but we seldom, if ever, hear about how a righteous life brings peace of mind.

[JTC]

21 hours ago, johnthebaptist said:

Our last pastor would keep telling us there was nothing wrong with homosexuality, jamming that down our throats when we had come to worship the Lord. We keep getting the message that everyone is welcome in our church - I have no problem with that - but we seldom, if ever, hear about how a righteous life brings peace of mind.

Homosexuality is a real problem, and it was made worse when Obama legalized it. I won't be here in 50 to 80 yrs but if you are remember my words. Gay & lesbian couples are now being allowed to adopt children. I know growing up in an orphanage isn't better but wait until you see the psychological problems and strange attitudes these kids being raised by homosexuals will have. Obviously not all will be effected but many will. How do I know? I'll tell you. In the 60's, 70's & 1980's my generation believed that heterosexual couples should be able to live like married folks. This soon included raising children. Today many of those kids are adults and many (not all) have all kinds of psychological issues and attitudes that are not healthy. They even had to invent a new psychiatric disorder category to explain these folks, it's called Personality Disorder. That diagnosis didn't exist in the 70's when I was in collage. So I hate to think what will happen to kids raised by homosexuals. I won't be here but many of you will. Remember my words.

   I don't belong to a church because I no longer own a car. But lately I think God wanted me to pastor a church but I was too humble to believe it................ You did what you could JtB. Just remember that things change, maybe you can influence the pastor in the future. 

[Ruth Also]

In my family, everyone smoked.  Oh, sure, when I was a kid I was idealistic  - I wasn't going to drink, smoke, cuss...but as a teen all those things crept in easy as pie.  Parents both cussed and bought me the necessary supplies for both vices.  As a new believer in Jesus Christ I heard almost an audible voice speaking to my heart as I lit up a cigarette in the car one day, "You don't need this, you know."  The concept had never occurred to me.  My response was, "I don't need this?  Great!  Let me put it down."  And I did.  Last one.  Other problems are more difficult, old faulty thinking patterns, being critical, being haughty.  I reckon it's the human experience.  And I have to reckon myself to be dead to it, too.  It wasn't overnight, but it was constant as His love leaned into my faulty patterns and got my life where He knew it would work better.  I am grateful for His steadfast love!   

[johnthebaptist]

3 hours ago, JTC said:

Homosexuality is a real problem, and it was made worse when Obama legalized it. I won't be here in 50 to 80 yrs but if you are remember my words. Gay & lesbian couples are now being allowed to adopt children. I know growing up in an orphanage isn't better but wait until you see the psychological problems and strange attitudes these kids being raised by homosexuals will have. Obviously not all will be effected but many will. How do I know? I'll tell you. In the 60's, 70's & 1980's my generation believed that heterosexual couples should be able to live like married folks. This soon included raising children. Today many of those kids are adults and many (not all) have all kinds of psychological issues and attitudes that are not healthy. They even had to invent a new psychiatric disorder category to explain these folks, it's called Personality Disorder. That diagnosis didn't exist in the 70's when I was in collage. So I hate to think what will happen to kids raised by homosexuals. I won't be here but many of you will. Remember my words.

   I don't belong to a church because I no longer own a car. But lately I think God wanted me to pastor a church but I was too humble to believe it................ You did what you could JtB. Just remember that things change, maybe you can influence the pastor in the future. 

The world has amazed me, and I mean it a bad way, in the last decade. Remember we are not of the world. I suspect the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s amazed Christians in the same way.

[Ruth Also]

I feel for the United Methodists - this recent stuff impacts a lot of people. 

[JTC]

16 hours ago, johnthebaptist said:

The world has amazed me, and I mean it a bad way, in the last decade. Remember we are not of the world. I suspect the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s amazed Christians in the same way.

Agreed, the world amazes me in the wrong way too. I was a teen in the 60's and I thought living together or casual sex were good ideas. A decade later I was saved and a few years after that I realized we were wrong. But it was too late and today it's gone way beyond what I favored. All we can really do is be different, which is what the Bible says we should. We can set a good example and hope secular society copies us. The problem is almost every day I hear of someone who calls his or herself Christian and that person has troubles with their unmarried live-in partner. This is not good.

18 hours ago, Ruth Also said:

It wasn't overnight, but it was constant as His love leaned into my faulty patterns and got my life where He knew it would work better.  I am grateful for His steadfast love! 

Hi Ruth, I think you have illustrated my points. You had to make the choice to put the tobacco down, and nothing happened overnight.

   Here is what upsets me. In my first church I met a woman a few yrs my senior who was saved longer than me but she still smoked marijuana. This was significant because I was struggling with quitting marijuana myself. However she wasn't trying to quit, instead she rationalized her problem by saying she was waiting for the Lord to take it away from her. She further rationalized that since the Lord hadn't removed the desire from her He must approve of it. No, I don't agree. I did quit several yrs later but it wasn't easy. It required my will plus God's power. Even so, it took 3 yrs before I could sleep normal again. For anyone doing this today we have CBD oil which is similar to marijuana but CBD oil doesn't make you high. But it does help many people sleep. I wish it existed when I quit.

[Billiards Ball]

On 9/26/2019 at 7:59 AM, JTC said:

Oh boy, I was born into quite a few. This is a problem we all have. I'm posting this because with God's help most are gone. Although some are a constant battle.

1.  Gluttony, my family (and extended family) saw nothing wrong with eating until our bellies hurt. No wonder we were almost all extremely obese. The odd thing is they were all Catholics and Catholicism sees Gluttony as 1 of the deadly sins. I went on my first diet at 15 bc I wanted a girlfriend. I got a gf probably the best one I ever had. But we were too young & I was way too dumb. But I'm happy to say I'm still friends with her. She was saved before me. She constantly preached the Lord to me even though I wouldn't believe her. However, I finally did.

2. The Love of Money. To want constant things. Girls usually want clothes & shoes, while boys want toys. Those toys grow as we do. They become more expensive & sophisticated. Today a smartphone can be a toy. Granted, we all need a phone since they removed every pay phone, but $1,000 for an Iphone. No way. Again, I was lucky bc I started seeing the futility in possessions at 15. And I never loved possessing money for the sake of money bc I watched my parents become miserable over it. Once I found the Lord I knew this had to go. Today I won't buy anything unless I need it to sustain my life. Additionally, I give to charities & God's work, as I am able. Praise be to the Lord.

3. Thou Shalt Criticize Thy Neighbor (not) especially when it's something you do as well. Ever hear someone tear apart someone else for doing what he himself does? I was born into a family that made a sport of doing this. They did it to each other and every stranger they knew. It's a terrible personality characteristic and it's also a sin. This is virtually dead in me now, but occasionally it tries to come back.

4. An Elitist Attitude. This is closely related to #3 and it's also a sin. In the Bible we are told, when you're invited to a dinner do not take the best seat, take a lesser seat. Why? Feeling elitist is being smug, conceited, puffed up. God doesn't like this. I want to be pleasing to God. It's rough when you're taught this as a child. I killed this one, I do believe it's gone.

   This list is hardly complete, as I think of more I may add it it. Ever since I decided to walk with God I've become aware of sins I was taught to have. May God help me.

Adam and Eve were asked, "What have you done?!" because their children all sin, EVEN BORN AGAIN BELIEVERS.

Pray to break the curse, love Christ more, find freedom. Amen!