Christ our victory over sin and death.

Believer, if the trumpet should sound right now and our being caught up with Christ depended on how well we are obeying the law or paying tithe, not even the holiest Daddy in the Lord will make the cut, "For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are." Romans 3:20.

Nothing as foolish and time-wasting as to dwell on "my sin is better than yours" or "I am keeping more laws than you." As if it makes the wages that each will ultimately pay for sin any different. Understand that "the wages of sin is death." So, a very slow and painful death by a blunt machete for the false doctrine pastor that fleeces his flock. A quick and painful death by a blunt machete for the fornicator and the homo/bi/pan/trans/whatever-sexual. Painless death by lethal injection for the one that only told a small lie. All sinners will perish in hell. We were all destined for hell because "all have sinned." Why be more concerned about the kind of death that "other people" will die rather than death itself? A death that Christ died for all. All have sinned. The wages of sin is death. Christ died that death so that all who believe might "live in triumph over sin and death through the One, Jesus Christ." Romans 5:17. 

Romans 5:9 says of our heavenly Father: "And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God."

In Christ, even the vilest offender who believes gets to be transformed to godliness and right-living and it has got nothing to do with human effort. Christ does it all. Good works are EVIDENCES of our salvation, not CONDITIONS. But we tend to waste time and effort writing posts about how fornicators, homosexuals and people who don't pay tithe or sow seed will experience God's wrath instead of pointing ourselves and other believers to Christ of whom it is said in Titus 2:14-

“He gave His life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us His very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.”

Notice “free us from every kind of sin”? No sin is too big or too heinous for Him to save the sinner who believes from. No sinner is too vile for Him to transform. Bickering about which sin is worse than others and discriminating against “core sinners” won’t get us anywhere. Christ saves from sins but ministers of Satan the accuser point out your sins and tell you that you are destined for hell unless you do certain things (that only they can prescribe) in order to make yourself godly and heaven-worthy. But Christ gave His life to free us from every kind of sin and save us from wrath!

All sinners, whether big sins or small, will pay the wages of sin: Death. And all have sinned. The difference between life and death is God’s saving Grace- undeserved, unearned, unmerited favour. Preach Grace and Grace will save His people from their sins.

James 2:10 says: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law yet stumble at one point, he is guilty of all." Without Christ as our righteousness, the one whose only sin is lying to his boss that he is sick when in reality, he went to do some charity work in his church is just as guilty as a murderer and will surely perish in hell! This does not seem fair to many, until we realise one thing:

No sin is beneath anybody. The reason why we are not committing particular sins is because we have not been tempted beyond what we can bear in those areas. If a big enough trial came our way and it was up to us to save ourselves, even the best of us would fail woefully. No matter how hard a weightlifter trains, he cannot carry a weight that is designed to crush him ten times over. And life does not consider things like weight, resources or level of preparedness before throwing weights at anybody.

The potential to commit heinous crimes is in everybody but like Peter who boasted that he would never deny Jesus, favourable circumstances make some people think that some sins are beneath them. God sees this potential to sin and how these favourable circumstances can make some people think that some sins are beneath them and that they can obey the law in order to be godly. This is why we still hear things like: "Yes, we are saved by Grace but you still have to obey the law and do so and so...." even from people who profess Christ. This is confidence in the flesh (human effort.)This is the neither cold nor hot that Christ spoke of in Revelation 3. Neither under Law nor under Grace.

Believer, we can do nothing of ourselves, much less obey the law in order to be godly. There is nothing like "I can never do that" or "I will always do that" in the life of anybody. God's word says "The arm of flesh will fail" and "lean not on your own understanding." By grace, don't be deceived by false teachers who preach confidence in human effort! Proverbs 16:18 counsels us:

"Your boast becomes a prophecy of a future failure. The higher you lift up yourself in pride, the harder you’ll fall in disgrace."

Going by human effort, no sin is beneath anybody. Believer, this is the only reason why we are not committing particular sins: 1 Corinthians 10:12-13-

12 "So beware if you think it could never happen to you, lest your pride becomes your downfall. 13 We all experience times of testing, which is normal for every human being. But God will be faithful to you. He will screen and filter the severity, nature, and timing of every test or trial you face so that you can bear it. And each test is an opportunity to trust Him more, for along with every trial God has provided for you a way of escape that will bring you out of it victoriously."

If God was not filtering and screening, restraining us from sins, we'd all be wallowing in heinous sins by now. When our eyes are opened by His revelation, we get to point people who are wallowing in sins to Christ who saves from sins instead of telling them to save themselves or else burn in hell. Romans 1 tells us:

16"I refuse to be ashamed of sharing the wonderful message of God’s liberating power unleashed in us through Christ! For I am thrilled to preach that everyone who believes is saved—the Jew first, and then people everywhere! 17 This gospel unveils a continual revelation of God’s righteousness—a perfect righteousness given to us when we believe. And it moves us from receiving life through faith, to the power of living by faith.This is what the Scripture means when it says: “We are right with God through life-giving faith!”"

This is the crux of the gospel of Christ: "This gospel unveils a continual revelation of God’s righteousness—a perfect righteousness given to us when we believe."

See an account of the outcome of God letting go of His restraining hand on those who refused to acknowledge the truth about Him (The gospel of Christ- Righteousness by faith) in the same Romans 1:

24 "This is why God lifted off His restraining hand and let them have full expression of their sinful and shameful desires. They were given over to moral depravity, dishonoring their bodies by sexual perversion among themselves— 25 all because they traded the truth of God for a lie. They worshiped and served the things God made rather than the God who made all things—glory and praises to Him for eternity of eternities! Amen!"

26–27 For this reason God gave them over to their own disgraceful and vile passions. Enflamed with lust for one another, men and women ignored the natural order and exchanged normal sexual relations for homosexuality. Women engaged in lesbian conduct, and men committed shameful acts with men, receiving in themselves the due penalty for their deviation. 28 And because they thought it was worthless to embrace the true knowledge of God, God gave them over to a worthless mind-set, to break all rules of proper conduct."

These people rejected the Good News and God "lifted off His restraining hand and let them have full expression of their sinful and shameful desires."

If God was not filtering and screening, we'd all be wallowing in heinous sins by now. But we often think we did good all by ourselves. No friend. The default mode of man is sinfulness thanks to the sin/old nature inherited from Adam. Paul said in Romans 7:18-

"For I know that nothing good lives within the flesh of my fallen humanity. The longings to do what is right are within me, but will-power is not enough to accomplish it."

Believer, of ourselves, there is no good in us. Christ in us is our good and our power over sin and death. Romans 5:17 says:

"For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one Man, Jesus Christ."

Only when we receive God's abundance of Grace and His gift of righteousness to us in Christ do we get to live in triumph over sin and death through Jesus Christ.

Right believing always produces right living