Lou Coleman-Yeboah
By Lou Coleman-Yeboah
After all Jesus did for you, you spit in His face by continuing in your sin. You ingrate! You have failed to appreciate the purpose of God’s forbearance with you. Showing contempt for God’s forgiveness. You done lost your mind! Dead towards God, but alive to Satan’s power. You better wake up and come to your senses. It would have be better if you had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command you were given to live a holy life. [2Peter 2:21]. God is a Holy God and He requires that we be Holy. “Be ye Holy for I am a Holy God,” saith the Lord. [1 Peter 1:15-17]. This I say therefore and testify in [the name of] the Lord [as in His presence], that you must no longer live as the heathen do in their perverseness of their minds. [Ephesians 4:17-19]. You have been freed from that vile prison. Don’t you dare go back and live like you used to live. If you do, sin will take you further than you ever wanted to stray, keep you longer than you ever wanted to stay and cost you more than you ever dreamed you would pay. Let the daily conduct of your life conform with your new life in Christ. Make a clean break with your old life and stop living by the standards of behavior of the pagan people. For you have heard and accepted “the truth as it is in Jesus”; now you must live, act and speak according to this new standard. There can be no compromising alliances, no stultifying reserves, and no divided interests.
As Paul reminds us in Titus… “We also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. [Titus 3:3]- As unbelievers, we were the pawns of Satan, under his dominion, carrying out his dictates. We were unaware of this because he controlled us through the influence of the world and the flesh. We once walked “according to the course of this world” and in accordance with the “lusts of our flesh” But now that we have been born again, in Christ we have been raised from our dead state spiritually to newness of life. And because of this, we are to renounce the world and its dominion over us. We are to “put off” fleshly things and “put on” the things of the Spirit. Being born again is meant to reverse the way we once were, apart from Christ. Do not use the grace of God as an excuse and a license to keep on sinning. Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God–I say this to your shame. [1 Corinthians 15:34.]”
For these are the words of the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing. But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” [Revelation 3: 14-22].
SIN NO MORE. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” (Ephesians 5:1-5) I admonish you to no longer live and wallow in sin. God’s grace has set you free from sin and the power it use to have over you. Even, though the power of sin seems so strong at times, the tug, the pull, the pressure, the battle, the struggle. Even though it can get to the point where it seems and feels overwhelming. You must put forth effort again to do what is right. So DO NOT let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. DO NOT offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. Sin shall not be your master….” [Romans 6:12-14]. The command is not merely to flee evil but to hate evil, just like the command is not merely to do mercy but to love mercy, to love righteousness. This is not optional. It’s commanded in the Bible, not suggested. Knowing that you are free from the power and penalty of sin, reckon yourself to be dead to sin and alive to Jesus. Consider it a done deal!
May God grant that you have knowledge of what God has done to save sinners, that you may reckon on its truth and reality in your life, and may you yield your body to serve the living God!
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