Am I Sinner or Saint?
The way you answer this question has huge implications on your relationship with God. Some people lean one way or the other while some say they are both.
The bible teaches clearly that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s standard. We have no way of paying the debt of our sin. God is holy and demands that we are holy. God is also just so the penalty had to be paid for our sin, but we couldn’t pay the penalty. Our sin debt demands our death, but God sent His son Jesus to die in our place. A perfect life lived and a death died in our place that gives us the free gift from God to be forgiven and placed in right standing with Him today and tomorrow.
The bible teaches that if you profess Jesus is Lord and are baptised you will be saved. The payment that Jesus made will apply to your debt and your debt will be canceled. So not only is your current debt canceled, but also your future debt and He offers His Holy Spirit to indwell us and lead us so He can be in relationship with us.
Second Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”. We have been clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
I can confidently say I am saved, but I also still sin, however Scripture teaches that I am seen by God as righteous and that Christ became sin for me. So how do we reconcile these two contrasting things and why does it matter?
For thousands of years God’s presence dwelled in the ark of the covenant, an ornate, gold-plated box that was placed in the holy of holies, the innermost part of the temple in Jerusalem. God allowed His presence to dwell in the ark because it was sanctified, cleansed ceremonially and it was undefiled. If at anytime the ark had become ceremonial unclean or defiled God would have removed His presence. His perfect holiness could not be in proximity of unholiness.
Even after we have been saved there are sins we commit but God doesn’t remove His Spirit from us! Why? Jesus atoned once and for ALL. The total debt of our entire lives has been paid in FULL.
We should not say anything of ourselves that God doesn’t say of us. He says you are forgiven, clean, a son, a daughter in whom He delights. This is not to diminish our pursuit of holiness and to hold an absolute belief that we should not sin, but God has made it possible for us to still live in a broken world, not get it right (sin) and stay in relationship with Him. He promises that He will never leave or forsake us. Isn’t that amazing. Despite continually messing up He stays with us, in us!
There is something that is so powerful when we declare over ourselves the identity God has spoken through scripture over us. Romans 8 says “Therefore, there is NO condemnation for those in Christ”. Sin loses its grip on us the more we are able to see, believe, and walk in the truth of who we are to God. We may still sin, but the more we identify with our true self (not necessarily all of our actions)…but with who God says we are we will see the patterns we’ve been stuck in lose more and more power. This is why a rich love relationship with God must be continually developed. God is ready and waiting for more of you and to give you more of Him. This life here on earth can be a lifetime of knowing Him more and loving Him more. The more we see Him the more we will know Him. The more we know Him the more we will love Him. The more we love Him the more we will really believe the REALITY of what He has told us about Himself and who we really are. That is the TRUTH that sets us FREE. If you have accepted the free gift of salvation from God, bought by Jesus on the cross, than you do not have to identify as a sinner. You are a son or daughter of God.
You were lost, but now you are saved.
You were an enemy, but now you are a friend of God
You can say “I was a sinner…but He saved me and God made me His child”!
Having trouble believing this? This is the scandalous gospel that makes us right with God of no merit of our own. Declare it even when you don’t feel it. Declare it until you believe it! You are His child.