I was living in sin consciousness for many years. For many years, I grappled with sin because I wanted to please God and I wanted to make heaven, so I literally tried to avoid sin.
After I gave my life to Christ in SS1, my journey was extremely inconsistent which led to my eventual backslide later. In all this time, I really was trying; it was not as if I was deliberately committing to sin.
It was so bad – my belief – that I avoided talking to people so they don’t draw me to sin or because I didn’t want to talk my way into sin.
But guess what, it usually only lasted a few days. I even started thinking something was wrong with me and I needed prayer of deliverance from sin or something.
I remember one lady who gave her life to Christ then in secondary school as well. She was a year behind me and I can recall after a few days, she told someone that she couldn’t continue; it was too hard.
Now, in retrospect, when I think about it, I figured she was like me who wanted to please God at all counts that she lost sight of what Christ has done.
Am I saying living a life in Christ is not about living a life that pleases God? No, that is not what I am saying. The point is not about not pleasing God but how we try to please God.
What God expects of us is to live in the consciousness of what Christ has done and not what we can do. When we live in the consciousness of the laws and trying not to sin, what happens is that we empower sin and end up falling. The power of sin is in the law.
But when we live in the consciousness of what Christ has done, we empower the life Christ has given us and we end up living a life that pleases Him.
The devil knows this and that is why he continuously comes to bickering to you about how you fell into anger yesterday. He is not called the accuser of the brethren without reason, don’t listen to him.
If you do fall, go back to God in remorse and claim your righteousness in Christ.
Pastor Joseph Prince said something. He said God asked him that there were only two people in the Bible who He said had “great faith”; the centurion (Matt 8: 5 – 13) and the Canaanite woman whose daughter was troubled by an evil spirit (Matt 15: 21 – 28).
God asked what their secret was.
According to him, he told God the centurion was a man under authority and so, he understood authority and understood great faith.
The Lord said to him, “how about the Canaanite woman?” God wanted him to find the common denominator between the two and he couldn’t come up with an answer.
So God told him, “they were both Gentiles and not under the law.” Joseph Prince further explained that they probably didn’t even know the law, so they were just CONSCIOUS of JESUS and not where they were falling short. They were not sin conscious because they were not law conscious, they were just JESUS CONSCIOUS.
If we want to live a life outside of sin, we have to fix our gaze on Jesus and not our shortcomings.
The devil, the accuser of the brethren would always try to remind us of our imperfections but in spite, we should fix our gaze on our goal, becoming like Christ, we should not let ourselves be deterred when we fall but to keep looking unto the Jesus and confessing His righteousness as ours.
Only then can we live the life that Christ wants for us.
To be continued.
6 Pingbacks