Grace is Here so Don't Turn Back!!!!

           One of the most dangerous choices that a christian can make is to accept God's salvation, but to forgo his grace.  How can this happen?  In this instance we believe on Jesus the Christ the only begotten son of God, but we choose to pick back up our sin and take it with us instead of leave it under his blood.  When we do this we are choosing to deal with the laws of God rather than accept the grace of God.  When we choose to embrace sin then we also choose to embrace the natural consequences of sin too because without grace there is only law.  Sin hurts US, and we can not beat it on our own.  Why would we want to beat sin?  That is a fair question.  We want to defeat sin because if sin wins then we are utterly destroyed.  Sin is not our friend it is our frenemy. The Lord of sin, which is Satan, wants to destroy us before we realize that we are in danger.  Without deliverance Christians, yes I said Christians, could end up addicted to things like sex, drugs, alcohol, even things like accolades and adoration. When we choose to give ourselves over to sin we become slaves to it, and we begin dying on the inside and often times on the outside as well. Sin feels good, but it brings a host of damaging side effects including separation from God, openings to evil, twisting of reality, exhaustion and early aging, lack of credibility, and desperation.  We need God's grace to break the hold of sin on our lives.  Deliverance is a beautiful and necessary thing if we are to live victoriously. God doesn't just want us to go to heaven; he wants us to live well on earth. 

    The Bible warns the Christian that to go back to sin after you have been freed is like returning to your vomit.  Have you ever had food come back up in your mouth?  It is so disgusting and if you swallow it back you feel disgusting and sick.  I get nauseous just mentioning it. Returning to a sinful lifestyle is like that.  It is like swallowing your vomit back down. I would wager to say that it is a much worse experience than the original digestion. One of the early examples of the effects of affection for sin is Lot's wife.  To those who do not know the story, Lot and his family lived in an evil place called Sodom and Gomorrah.  The place was so evil that God sent an angel to warn Lot to leave the city because he was going to destroy it. Lot begged for God not to destroy the place, but there weren't even 10 righteous people in the entire city so God told Lot to get his family out and don't look back.  As a side note here Lot had a wife and children and son's in law so I am guessing some of his own family didn't even qualify as righteous, but God was gracious to deliver his entire family for his sake. WOW!  Unfortunately his family loved that place so much that, even though they were warned not to look back,  Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt!! 

     God is not some legalistic father that hammers down on us when we don't do what he wants.  God knows the consequences of our actions and he warns us not to go that way hoping that we will heed his plea and avoid certain destruction.  God loves us, and he wants us to be safe.  His ways are not to confine us but to free us from the devastating effects of a sin focused life. God wants us to have abundant life, but there is no place for a sinful lifestyle in that picture.  That is why Jesus had to come.  He was our only way to escape the destruction of our souls.  We couldn't help ourselves so God helped us.  We don't have to sin anymore.  When we choose to live sinfully we choose to step away from the grace of God and to deal with our sin in our own way.  In case you haven't figured it out our flesh is addicted to sin so unless we give ourselves over to God completely we won't get free.  

    To choose grace is to leave our sin under the blood and to take on the mind of Christ, to allow God to teach us how to be who we were meant to be.  We still miss the mark, but thanks be to God we can move forward without fear of damnation.  We can "fall forward" and learn to be better knowing that God's grace is sufficient for us.  It is not a sinless life, but it is not a sin focused life.  We are no longer concentrating on not sinning or the sins that we did commit, but we are focused on the love of God and building our relationship with him. This is the choice that people in the Bible like Paul made, who used to be Saul the persecutor of the saints.He could have given up once he realized that he was wrong and led a defeated life constantly focusing on all the people he had imprisoned and killed in the name of the church.  Instead he acknowledged his need for grace and then focused on serving God with all of his energy.  He got to know the Lord's ways and it changed his life forever.  This same man that Jesus said was persecuting him wrote several portions of the Bible!  Now that's grace.  I can't imagine ever walking away from grace like that for a lifestyle that would leave me empty and alone.  I can't turn back.