Book 2 of Musings The Choice Is Yours

Christ is ready to remove the bondages of sin from His people.

If you truly want to be delivered from your sinful nature, He will work with you until you have been set free.

The choice is yours.

We knew it had to come some day. There is no way in which we can continue to sin when we are with God in Heaven, or when we are following Christ on the white war stallions as He descends to install the Kingdom of God on the earth.

There is no way in which we can continue to sin after we have been raised from the dead.

At some point we must be delivered from our sinful nature.

Daniel tells us that God is going to make an end of sin. Matthew informs us that at the end of the age Christ will send out His angels (messengers) and weed out of His Kingdom everything that causes sin, that is, the sinful nature of man.

I think we Christians need to think more about the inappropriateness of sin in the Kingdom of God.

We have been taught that Christ cannot, or will not, remove our sinful nature-at least while we still are alive on the earth. But there is no Scripture to support this view. However, there is Scripture to support the idea that under the new covenant we can put to death the deeds of the sinful nature.

All sin must go. All sin must be removed from the Kingdom of God. All my sin and all your sin must be removed from the Kingdom. Otherwise, life in the Paradise of God will be denied to us.

I guess we have considered sin to be an endless amount of evil in our personalities. This is not the case. Sin is a finite number of nasty little desires that keep us from righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Be assured that the mighty Christ has enough authority and power to remove your sinful nature and my sinful nature.

The key to the complete removal of the sinful nature, the compulsions to sin that dwell in the members of our body according to the Apostle Paul, is our desire and willingness to permit the work of redemption to progress past forgiveness to release from sinful compulsions. Christ came to destroy, not forgive, the works of the devil.

The Kingdom of God does not consist of people who merely have been forgiven, but people who have been forgiven and then delivered from the compulsions of sin.

The key, as I said, is our desire and willingness to be released. This means giving up all of our sinful tendencies.

There may be Christians who, like their Lord, love righteousness and hate iniquity. Like the Apostle Paul, they are groaning for the day when they will receive a body that is free from sinful tendencies.

Then there may be Christians who are not overly concerned about their sinful nature. To them, salvation primarily is escape from Hell and residence in Heaven. They love the teaching that faith and grace are their alternative to righteous behavior.

They trust that when the Lord comes they will receive a body like the Lord's and with Him govern the nations of the earth. Yet, their heart is not right. They are not convinced that sin is evil. They have never denied themselves, taken up their cross, and set out after the Master. They want to go to Heaven, but they want to go there just as they are.

If the Bible taught that they will be changed in personality when they die, or when the Lord comes, they might have hope that when the Lord appears they suddenly will become righteous. But the Bible teaches that when the Lord returns He will hold them to account for their behavior, as in the parable of the talents.

We all have a sinful nature. We were born with a sinful nature. We never asked to be born with a sinful nature. We inherited our sinful, rebellious nature from Adam and Eve, through one of the three sons of Noah.

God does not condemn us for having a sinful nature. How could He? We did not ask to be bound with moral chains, with a compulsive desire to sin.

When we appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, God will not condemn us for having a sinful nature. Rather, our judgment will be based on what we did about it.

There are Christians to whom the news that Christ is ready to work with us in the release of our sinful nature will be the best news they have ever heard. They will go to the Lord immediately to discover how the program works.

Then there may be Christians, hopefully very few in number, who will behave arrogantly. They will declare that if Christ wants to deliver them, they won't stop Him. They are waiting to go to Heaven in an unscriptural "rapture." They are sure that God doesn't see their behavior because of His mercy, grace, and unconditional love.

They will continue in their sinful bondages until they die. Then they will be placed in the spirit realm, there to await the Day of Resurrection, at which time they will receive the rewards to be given to careless believers. They assuredly will not be raised from the dead and transformed, when the Lord returns, because they have not taken the prerequisite steps, the steps of moral deliverance that are available now.

They have not been living in close interaction with the Lord. They have not been watching Him carefully. Now He is moving in a fresh way and they will be caught off guard. They have not been watching, as He warned us to do.

The key is your heart. Do you really want to be set free from all behavior that displeases God?

If so, go to the Lord right now. If you think back over the last month you will notice that the Holy Spirit already has been dealing with you concerning some aspect of your love for the world, the lusts and passions of your flesh and soul, or your self-will and personal ambitions.

Get down before the Lord and confess these behaviors as sin. Confess only those things you actually have done or said, not what you have been tempted to do or have imagined.

Name your action as clearly and specifically as you can. Tell the Lord that by His grace you denounce and renounce this action. Tell Him that with His help you never again will behave in this manner.

It is an eternal judgment against Satan. It will not be brought up again at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Try it and see! It can't hurt and it might help. We are in a new day, in the time of the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish Day of Atonement.

It had to come sooner or later if the Lamb is to have a bride without spot or wrinkle.

It is God's time now to put an end to sin. Are you ready for this? Go to the Lord and ask Him about it. Taste and see that the Lord is good.

The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. (Matthew 13:41)