Tuesday, November 15, 2022
The Problem of Habitual Sin
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. (1 John 3:9 NLT)
If we were walking the dusty roads of Israel with Jesus and came upon the man known as Judas Iscariot for the first time, he might not be what we had expected him to be. At first blush, we might even think that he was a stand-up guy.
We might believe that he was devout, deeply religious, and very concerned about others. And we would have been shocked upon discovering that he was the one who betrayed the Lord. That’s because Judas was an incredible actor. He was a performer. He knew how to talk the talk, but he certainly didn’t know how to walk the walk.
Yet Judas had no excuse. He had the privilege of spending a number of years with God incarnate. He would have been fully aware that Jesus was never hypocritical or inconsistent in any way, shape, or form. He saw Jesus live a flawless life.
Yet Judas did not believe. And not only that, he turned against Jesus and sold Him for 30 pieces of silver, the price commonly paid to purchase a slave.
Judas was able to do the wicked things that he did because he never really knew Jesus. Sure, he knew about Him. In fact, he knew about Him more than most people did. But he never personally knew Jesus. Judas’s life could be summed up by this statement about him: “So he went his way” (Luke 22:4 NKJV). He lived the way that he wanted to live.
If you can habitually commit sin without any remorse, that’s a clear indicator that you don’t know God. There are a lot of people running around today saying, “I’m a believer. I’m a follower of Jesus.” Yet, if they can persist in sin, something isn’t right.
The Bible doesn’t say that a Christian won’t sin, only that a Christian won’t habitually sin.
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