Someone needs to hear this today. I hear, from time to time, people saying that they have gone too far in sin for them to ever be able to return to God. This is a lie and totally dismisses who God is and how He saves. Today I want to look at a verse in the Bible that I had overlooked until now but it has a powerful message for anyone who thinks they can’t be saved.
“And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son” (Rom. 5:9-10 NLT).
What it’s saying is that God loved us while we were enemies to Him and He saved us when we had ZILCH to offer Him. We did nothing to earn our salvation but God, in His mercy and love called us to be His son or daughter. So far so good. This is what every Protestant believes and teaches.
It’s the next bit that surprised me. Paul says that if God saved us while we were miserable and weak wretches who sinned freely, how much more will we, as His precious son or daughter, be saved. If our sins didn’t stop God loving us in the first place, our sins, as His adopted son or daughter, won’t cause God to turn His face away from us and shout “Enough!”
It’s like the prodigal son who returned to God after a reckless life. He always was a son and was always received as a son (despite what his judgmental law-keeping brother believed). Sometimes we think that our sins are too big for God to forgive, but this isn’t what it says here.
I love this passage in Romans that promises me life, despite my failures.
“Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous. God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant.
So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:19-21 NLT).
We sin but we live under grace. Grace reigns over our sinful lives – no longer law and judgment. I’m not saying we WANT to sin or that we should sin, just that sin is inevitable and that, because of Jesus, sin doesn’t alienate us from God. To God, all sin is the same. Sin is sin. We are the ones who make one sin worse than another, but our sin, whether you regard it as big or small, can’t separate us ever again from God.
Paul puts it this way:
"And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.
Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin” (Rom. 7:18-25 NLT).
Only when we are living in immortality will we stop sinning. Until that day, know that God loves His own and readily forgives your repentant heart – nothing can separate you from the love of God (Rom. 8:38-39). NOTHING!
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