Question: Dear Greg,

I am a recent born again Christian and try to the best of my abilities to follow the law of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. I am having a problem in a particular area which I will not mention openly here. I am often ashamed to continually approach God and keep asking for his forgiveness for committing the same sin over and over again. I believe that once you ask for forgiveness God is faithful and just to forgive you but I also believe that true repentance means that I should not be walking back down the path I have already covered and know to be rocky.

I await your reply.

Dennis

Answer: Dear Dennis,

The Bible calls those who have accepted Christ as Savior and Lord "holy" – and "saints". Humbling, isn’t it? The Bible tells us that when we are born again, when we are regenerated, that we are justified, reconciled, forgiven, and sanctified because of the atoning work of Christ. That is – in terms of the penalty and reality of sin, the debt is paid. It is forgiven. Further, we are not only at "square one" – with no debt, but with our "account" with God showing zero, but God goes on to impute (credit) the righteousness of Christ to our account.

Thus, we are not only forgiven, but God regards us as holy and righteous – saints – not because of what we are, have been, have done, or will do – but all because of who and what Jesus is, has done, and is doing. Jesus now continues to sanctify us.

In one sense, sanctification – the act whereby God pronounces a forgiven sinner righteous – is not only that act – which takes place at a moment in time – but there is another part of sanctification which is a process, that being the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit within us to sanctify, cleanse, and purify us. We read about this in Phil. 2:12-13 and in 2 Peter 3:18, among other places.

The Holy Spirit does not work in us in spite of us, but with us. Here is where we do bring forth the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5), where we do become His workmanship (Eph. 2). Of course, our salvation is not earned, it is not by works – but having been saved by Jesus’ saving work on the cross, we are freed from sin to live a life in Christ.

And we do have a part in living that life. The Holy Spirit helps us to grow, He cooperates with us, He guides us, He prods us, He reminds us of the fact of sin. God always forgives, and certainly we believers should be embarrassed about works of the flesh and sin being present in our lives. But the fact that our sinful human nature remains a part of us until our body dies is not proof that we do not belong to Christ, or that we are no longer believers. Paul dealt with this enigma in Romans 7 – the struggle with sin that we Christians have. John discussed it at length in 1 John – see especially chapter 1:8-10.

If there is a persistent and habitual sin that plagues us, we might need to seek counseling – sometimes there are recovery groups, such as AA for those who are alcoholic and need help to stay away from all forms of alcohol – and sometimes medical attention can be helpful for there are chemical imbalances that can be helped with medication. In most cases there is also the firm resolve and conviction that each of us must have to decide not to co-exist with sin, not to compromise, and to resolve to overcome and conquer the sin that so easily besets us (Heb. 12:1-4) knowing that Christ lives in us and through him we can be more than conquerors (Romans 8:37)..

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht