What shall we say then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!  We are those who have died to sin, how can we live in it any longer?  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?  We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  Romans 6:1-4 NIV

I have a pretty simple mind.  You see I am not one of those people who questions everything around me and constantly takes things apart to see how they work.  I am just happy that they work and when they don’t work I call someone to fix it. Likewise when I read the Bible, I believe what it says and that’s that .  I know that God’s way works and I don’t question it.

But for those of you who are more intelligent and tend to question and challenge things, this verse makes it clear.  You see if you read the Bible and get into the verses about God’s mercy and grace, it seems as though we can sin because once we are saved we have a “get out of hell free” card.

First let’s talk about the term “saved”.  The Bible teaches that once we are saved we are new creatures in Christ and our eternal salvation is all wrapped up.  We are good to go.  I believe that.  However, it brings into question those that get saved and backslide or fall away from God.  I have literally seen people come into church and be baptized and never come back.  So what about these people?  Well I would say that it depends on whether or not they were truly saved.  If you’ve never been saved, its like this-once we begin to read God’s word and pray to Him and hear God’s word being preached and taught, God invites us to accept His son Jesus Christ as His savior.  God wants to fill our heart with the Holy Spirit.  Now you have often heard me say that God never forces us to do things His way.  So he puts the offer out there and you have a choice to accept or deny the invitation.  If you deny the invitation you go on about your life, your conscience may tug at you but you are still free to choose.  If you accept the invitation and accept Jesus as your savior and allow the Holy Spirit to come into your heart, then you are a changed person.  Now I personally believe that some people deny the invitation because they are afraid of what their friends and family may think about this new person.  Perhaps they won’t accept them. I believe there are others who are maybe pressured by family or friends to get saved and accept this invitation. In this case, they are doing it for the wrong reasons and aren’t wholeheartedly accepting this invitation.  In other words they are just going through the motions because they think it will please grandma or Aunt Sue, or their buddy.

Now what Paul is telling the Romans here is that we receive righteousness through faith.  This means that none of us are righteous on our own but once we invite Christ to live inside us, we receive His righteousness.  Now of course if you slip up and sin you can repent and be forgiven.  It does not mean that you just stay in your old sinful lifestyle and keep on sinning because you know eventually you can ask God for forgiveness and he will give it.

If you are truly saved, then you enter into a personal relationship with your savior Jesus Christ.  You make a commitment to follow Him no matter what anyone else may think or say about it.  When you do this, your old self dies.  The Baptist immerse you in water which symbolizes dying and burying your old sinful self.  I also symbolizes cleansing you from your sins.  When you are brought up out of the water is symbolizes the resurrection or rebirth of the new creature that you have now become.  Through this relationship with Christ you die to your old sinful self and a new creature, who no longer wants to sin, emerges.

What Paul is saying here is though Christ will forgive us of our sins, we no longer want to sin.  So rather than sinning with the attitude “oh well, I will be forgiven”, we no longer want to sin.  We know that sin separates us from God and when we are saved we want to be close to Him.

Now perhaps you have never been saved and you long for that closeness with your Savior.  Draw near to Him through Bible reading and prayer.  Find a good mentor to help you through your walk.  Or maybe you are like me.  I was saved and baptized at the age of 12.  I loved the Lord but through a series of events in my life, I just began to do my own thing and thought that God would understand.  He would know that I had been through hard times and would understand why I had behaved badly.  I wandered around like an Israelite lost in the desert for around 20 years.  Oh I went to church, I mean after all it was the right thing to do.  But Monday-Saturday I lived my old sinful life that did nothing but bring me more misery.  I couldn’t understand why all the fun I was having just wasn’t any fun.  I couldn’t understand how I could be living such a fun life and be miserable.  Then I finally got it, I rededicated myself to Christ and have never looked back.  Instead of sinning and hoping that God understands my justification, I try my best not to sin and try to repent immediately when I do and turn from my sinful behavior.

Perhaps you were saved but don’t feel that you were truly saved.  Perhaps you got saved for all the wrong reasons, maybe you joined with a church to satisfy a family member or for some other reason.

None of us know how much longer we have on this planet so I encourage you today to seek your savior and begin a personal relationship with Him.  He will lead you and guide you in the way that you should go.  He will make changes in your life that will make you not want to sin.  These changes will make you happy to shake off your former life for a more fulfilling life with Him.

My prayer for you today is that if you don’t have a personal relationship with your savior, that you establish one.  If you do have a personal relationship with your savior, then stay close.  We have love, shelter, mercy and grace under the protection and comfort of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Have a great day!