What Is The Spiritual Remedy
For A Stumbling Saint?

1 John 1:8-10 "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [9] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [10]  If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

Christians everywhere are confused over what the Christian life is. To the Catholic, Christianity is often shrouded in mysticism, chanting of the rosary, the ordinances of the Church, the Papal word. To the Protestant, Christianity is often a form of tabooism (thou shalt not do this, thou shalt not do that), devotion to a particular denomination (unless you're a member of MY Church you're not saved!), or licentious living (I was saved so I could freely ___). Often, whether Catholic or Protestant, we get far away from what the Bible teaches Christianity is.

Christianity is, quite simply, an ongoing and on-growing relationship with Jesus Christ our God and Savior in the power of the Holy Spirit. I want to stress the RELATIONSHIP part of this statement. When you have a relationship with someone, it is more than a passing acquaintance. For instance, if you find a woman, fall in love with her, and decide to marry her you enter into a relationship of marriage. Now, if every day you came home you avoided her, went about your own business, were married to her in name only, then would you be in a true relationship? Absolutely not! You might be married in name, but unless you devote at least some of your time to your spouse you certainly are not in a relationship with her, are not in truth married to her.

The same is true of the Christian walk. If you devote the majority of your time worshipping Mary, the Saints, the Pope, our Church, or your theological system, then you are NOT in a relationship with Christ. If you are devoting a majority of your time following after the Mosaic Covenant rather than the One the Covenant foreshadowed, you are NOT walking as a Christian should walk. You cannot have a relationship with your wife and keep a mistress on the side! Christ demands our total attention in our Christian relationship, not some pseudo-faith that looks at everything BUT Jesus. The spiritual relationship we have with Him comes to us by faith in Jesus Christ. His power comes to us when we believe on Him, not on ourselves or some outside medium.

The beginning of the Christian faith is HONESTY with God. I want you to notice that our introductory verses, 1 John 1.8-10, has some interesting things to say about the Christian and sin. Notice the tenses that God uses for "sin", HAMARTIA. In verse 8 God says, "If we say that we have no SIN". This is present tense, and singular. It refers to the sin that we have right now, the Old Sin Nature. Look, God knows you're a sinner saved by Grace. So many Christians go schizophrenic trying to live up to what they think God's standard of a Christian should be. They dig into the Old Testament and study the Mosaic Covenant. They attach stigma to things, like wine or tobacco, and make these things synonymous with the Christian way of life. Then, when they fall victim to one of these taboos, they spend time beating themselves rather than seeking the pathways back to God.

When God saved you, He saved your soul, not your body. The Old Sin Nature still resides in your body, and tempts you to sin in various ways. God says, "You have sin, it is in you. I know it's there, you should admit that it's there. If you don't admit that it's there, you lie, and that in itself is a sin". God knows that we have not reached the glorified sinless state yet. Though He does not want us to actively go out and pursue sin (which is disobedience to Him), He does expect us to be rationally honest with Him and with ourselves. Recognize you have an Old Sin Nature, that you are saved, and that you are a work of God IN PROGRESS, not completed.

In verse 9 God gives us the remedy for our occasional digressions into sin. He says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". I want you to notice that this is again a statement that is in the present tense, but this time HAMARTIA is plural. This is an important point for all Christians to latch onto, regardless of denomination. When you sin (in the present) you should quickly notice that sin (in the present) and confess it to God (in the present). As I said before, the Christian way of life is an honest relationship with Jesus Christ our Savior in the power of the Holy Spirit.

God knows we still have an Old Sin Nature, the glorification of our bodies is still in the future:

1 Corinthians 15:51-54  "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,   In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.   For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.   So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."

So when we, either foolishly by design or by accident, sin, then God expects us to CONFESS that sin, or sins, to Him at the MOMENT OF RECOGNITION. "Confess" is the Greek HOMOLOGEO, which means "to say the same thing about". That is, we say the same thing about the sin that God would say about it. Try this: the next time you sin, don't rationalize what you did. Don't say, "Lord, I looked at that girl in the tight short dress, but hey, she shouldn't have been dressed that way!". Don't say, "Lord, I lied, but I was trying to keep my job", or "Lord, I sinned, but ____". Cut the BUT part out. God wants you to say, "Lord, I sinned. I brought wrong into our relationship. Father, I confess this act as sin, and ask forgiveness in the name of Jesus Christ".

You know what happens next? God is "faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". This does not mean that your actions may not have physical ramifications. If you have illicit sex with someone who is diseased, you may get their disease. If you drank until you got alcohol poisoning, you may have damaged your liver. If you ingested a drug, contrary to God's command, you may die from overdose or suffer terrible withdrawal symptoms. If you lied with your tongue, or back bit someone, you may have destroyed a relationship forever. You may have stolen something, broke the law of the land, and you're going to jail (like Chuck Colson did). Our sins may, indeed, have outward ramifications, but by confessing them you are forgiven and returned to a right relationship in God.

In verse 10 God addresses the "holier than thou" who may, at this moment, be penning a poison letter to me about what they've read so far. God says, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us". Notice this time HAMARTIA is in the past tense, and illustrates the fact that we were all equally lost, gullible, stupidly involved in sin at one point in our lives. The minister of God is not some virgin born sinless being, no matter how hard he tries to portray this image. The deacon is not some paragon of virtue, to whom sugar wouldn't melt in his mouth. Only One among all of the human race ever walked this earth completely sinless, and that was Jesus Christ. The rest of us are, quite frankly, riding into Heaven on His coattails! If we say that we have not come from a background of sin, then we are calling God a liar. God sent Jesus to the Cross for the whole world, and that included you and me both.

Galatians 5:16  "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh."

Galatians 5:25  "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."

There are two interesting words used in these texts to describe the Christian "walk" or way of life. In verse 16 God tells us to "walk" or PERIPATEO, to tread all around in or deport yourself in the Spirit. We, as Christians, should literally get to the point in our relationship with God where we are "wallowing" in the Spirit, covered up by the Spirit, our every action governed by the Holy Spirit of God. Yes, the relationship should grow in the life of every Christian to this state.

But in verse 25 we are told to "walk" in the Spirit, but this time the word STOICHEO is used. STOICHEO is a military term meaning "to march in (military) rank (keep step), i.e. to conform". This is significant. I know that in our present age not many men have had any experience with the military, and more's the pity. If more men were forcibly drafted into the military they'd learn how to be men, dedicated men, and not the double minded people that we have in our congress and in positions of leadership today. When I first went into the military I went to basic training. We all got off of the bus, stood on painted footprints on the tarmac, and the first thing the drill instructor tried teaching us was KEEPING IN STEP. Oh, how ridiculous we looked for the first two weeks! As we marched we had to discover coordination and rhythm, how to march in step with the fellow in front of us and not step on his heels, how to keep time with the people to our right and left. As we marched the instructor would yell "One, Two, Left, Right, Get in step!", over and over again. Eventually we got it, and we moved in union with one another and with the instructor. We were a cohesive unit.

In the Church today we have a pitiful force, non-cohesive, out of step with one another. Some Christians are trying to keep in step with God by legalism, one of our manufactured substitutes for walking in the Spirit. Just as we cannot save ourselves, we cannot live the Christian life by our own manufactured precepts. I used to view the mindless liturgy and chants that some Christians fall into as a substitute for the Christian walk and think, "What's the harm? They're saved if they accepted Jesus as Savior". But there is harm. When you listen to the voice of anyone other than the Holy Spirit, the true Drill Instructor, then you're walking a path far separated from God. When you accept the words of man over the Word of God you're in the wrong training manual, hurting the cause of Christ on the earth. We MUST get in step with one another (not via religious tolerance or political correctness) through the Word of God and the leading of the Spirit alone. As Christians we should not look backward at our crooked paths:

Luke 9:62  "And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."

If you plow and look backward you plow a crooked and unfit furrow. If you march and look backward you stomp on the feet of the man in front of you. We should not look back at our past failures and beat ourselves up over them, dwell on them, obsess on them. Instead we HOMOLOGIA, confess that crookedness and look forward. The only way you can plow a straight furrow is to correct your path and focusing on one point, move toward that point. That one point must be Jesus Christ, Jesus' Word, Jesus' Spirit. Realize your past errors, learn from them, but don't let them engulf your life. This is not God's way, but Satan's.

As Christians we should not be living our lives according to the standards of those around us, but according to the standards of Christ. If you are in a Church that rejects God's Word, lifts up someone other than Jesus, promotes an agenda outside of God's clear teaching, then you are in the wrong place. I don't care if you're a Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Catholic, or what "flavor of the month" you are, if your Church is out of step with God then, even when you're in step with Him, someone else is always stepping on your feet. This is not a popular position, and many may censure me because of it. But, believer, we are to be in step with Jesus Christ in the Church HE calls us to. Each believer in the Church of Christ, no matter what local Church it is, must be willing to forsake self and get in step with Jesus through the power of God's Spirit. If the Church you're in has departed from God, depart from it and seek out an assembly of believers that hold His Word sacred. Increase your ability to get in step with God daily by studying His Word, praying, applying His direction to your life. If you fall into sin, HOMOLOGIA, confess your sin honestly before Him and ask forgiveness in the name of Jesus. Then get back in step and move on in your Christian walk.

1 John 2:2-3  "And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.  And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments."

He has paid for our sins, even the ones we commit after salvation. He paid the penalty that we could not pay, so we have no need to "do penance" or "seek and indulgence" from Him. Confess that sin, trust Him that He is faithful to His Word, and get back in step. Maranatha!

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