Can we hope to receive from Jesus forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life and we keep our favorite sins?

I am supposing we can it we are to believe what we are taught in our churches. So let’s go over it.

1. Firstly, we believe in the basic doctrines of the Christian Religion.
2. Secondly, we acknowledged our sinfulness 
3. Thirdly, we repented of our sins
4. Fourth, we asked Jesus to forgive us our sins and to come into our hearts
5. Fifth, now that Jesus is in He is not gonna leave

Now I am thinking about the number 5 above, if Jesus is not gonna leave, ever, then that gives me a little wiggle room when it comes to me and my favorite sin, whatever that may be, right? Or am I missing something?

After thinking about it for oh about “forever” now I have concluded that I am not missing anything. We all have some wiggle room to sin, how much? Well if you go full tilt sinning the church would conclude that you never ever got Jesus in your heart in the first place. It is what they call “cheap grace” at least that is what they say at my church. 

So we can’t go full tilt but if we throttle down our sinning somewhat then everybody seems to be happy. I figure about 20 to 25% less than your unsaved friends outta do it. Average it out we would come up with 22.5%. So yeah, if we just throttle down our sinning about 22.5% we should be golden.

It is a thing of beauty when you think about it. We get to have our cake and eat it to, (whatever that means), I guess it means we can have it both ways. So, yeah, we can have it both ways, hallelujah!

I don’t know about you but I am really glad I am a Christian. We get to enjoy the pleasures of both worlds. We can pleasure ourselves here in this world and then, when we die, we get to go to heaven and enjoy all the pleasures of that world. Whoa baby!

All we got to do is throttle it down a bit and we are golden. I just don’t understand why all my unsaved friends don’t get on board. What is the matter with them? Don’t they understand that they only have to show some sorrow for their sins and to repent at least long enough to say the sinners prayer and then at least try to stop with their sinning for a bit but after a while they will realize along with us that it is way too hard, really impossible and then they can go back to their old sinful ways and just do what we do and throttle it down a bit.

You would think Christianity would explode if people would realize these plain and simple points. I just don’t understand it. Maybe our pastors should be more up front about the Christian message. Maybe they should just say in the pulpit that we can have our cake and eat it too. That we can have it both ways! If they would do that I would think all the churches would fill up. I don’t know.

Well okay I am being a bit snarky, really the amount of sinning that you must reduce is an unknown. Nobody knows, and nobody talks about it so I just came up with the 22.5% thingy just to jolt your comfort zone. And oh, by the way, aren’t we engaging in “works righteousness” when we try to throttle down our sinning by that mysterious unknown amount?

I don’t know about your church but in our church we are told we should use the 10 commandments as our rule of living. And don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly agree, but may I ask a question here? Isn’t that what we call “works righteousness”? I know what they would say to that, obeying the ten commandments is not a way to earn your salvation, Jesus has already paid for that in full, but rather it is for your sanctification. Okay, I get that, it is not for salvation it is for sanctification but in the book of Galations Paul jumps down their throats for trying to be sanctified by works. So apparently we are not supposed to engage in good works not only for our salvation but also for our sanctification. So where does that leave us?

Let me show you some verses in Galations to show you what I mean. Chapter 3 verse 3 “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” And vs 10 “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’”

So the Galations began in the Spirit, and so have we. But then they tried to “be made perfect” by the flesh, which means they were trying to obey the law. Which is exactly what we are trying to do when we try to obey the ten commandments, we are trying “to be made perfect” or what we would call the path to sanctification. Which Paul says is not the gospel.

In 1:6,7 he says, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

So there you have it. If you go ahead and sin full tilt you will be thrown into the cheap grace dumpster, and if you try to obey the ten commandments or what ever other list of rules you might come up with, then you are engaging in a “different gospel” which is not the bona fide gospel. 

There is a third option I suppose, you can go bat-guano crazy. And I wonder what Paul means when he says that “the just shall live by faith”?

Just some things to think about. Write your comments below.

Jake