Romans 8:12 NLT
Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.
Many times, Christians tell me that a Christian has to sin. And to prove their point they will refer to the end of Romans 7 where Paul complains that every time he tries to do good he winds up doing evil instead.
But that scripture is usually taken out of context. In the first place, when Paul uses the word, “I,” he is NOT speaking about himself, personally in the present. The context for that scripture is for someone who is trying to live a good life all by themselves without any help from God at all. That is the type of life Paul USED TO live before he became a Christian. And that is where we get the word self-righteous from. It means that we are trying to become righteous through our own abilities. And self-righteousness always ends in failure.
However, the Bible clearly says in both Roman 6 and 8 that we have been freed from the obligation to sin. It’s true that if we try in our own effort to be good that we will fail. If we try a hundred times, we will fail. If we try for our entire lives, we will fail.
But what if we stop trying and just ask God to help us? What if we give up on trying to be good and just pursue God instead? Ironically, we will become good without even trying. Jesus is the sin killer. Every sinful person who comes to Him will be cleansed. You cannot live in His presence without becoming clean.
So don’t run from sin. Just run to Jesus. Instead of being self-righteous, you can become Christ’s righteousness. You don’t have to live in shame or defeat. ?
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