just give me one sin

[Prodigal Son]

many people here have said that we cannot lose salvation. so, i'm wondering if we can choose to afford ourselves one sin--something we know we can't live without?

now, we can know we are going to end up doing this and so we can "try" to stop but of course we won't. in knowing we are going to fail (and kind of making the decision to not worry about it so much), what happens?

nothing? if we do everything else right (but salvation has already been granted so it doesn't matter) but choose to partake in one sin...what happens?

i'm thinking nothing and i'm pleased about that , but i just want to make sure.

[Deborah]

lol If you purposely go out and sin just because you THINK you can get away with it. I think that kind of defeats being a christian by attempting to follow the example Christ set for us.
I believe it is for those who try and fall off, they know that they can get back up and will be forgiven. We have to attempts to better ourselves in the eyes of god, not think we can do whatever we like just because we think we are guarantied forgivness. That leave us in the same boat as non christians because that is what we would be.

[Prodigal Son]

but it will be "falling" only you know it's going to happen. you can try if you'd like but realize that it won't work.

and it won't be "doing whatever we like"...just one thing we like.

[Dan]

No sins period.

That's the whole point, sin is evil, you aren't allowed any evil, if you commit evil, you have to try harder to not commit it, it's not impossible, just hard, but not nearly as hard as doing some of the other things christ demands of us.

[LittleShepherd]

if we do everything else right (but salvation has already been granted so it doesn't matter) but choose to partake in one sin...what happens?

First and foremost, <B>other people die.</B> At the point you become a Christian, it's not about you anymore. You're a representative of Christ, and by your witness and testimony people live and die. What you do has eternal consequences, both for you and for other people.

The occasional fall is going to happen, though we should be careful of ever thinking of it as acceptable, or normal -- our falls should really shake us up, but they should also cause us to cling to Christ tighter. Everyone experiences this, but what you're suggesting, however, is a <B>willful</B> disobedience. Purposefully holding onto a sin because you've been deceived into believing you can't over come it.

Newsflash, buddy. You can overcome it. In fact, Christ has <B>already</B> overcome it for you, and you just need to step in line with Him and claim the victory. You say you "can't live without" something, but the truth of the matter is that if you settle for living with it, you're not really living at all.

Furthermore, Christ has promised rewards to the faithful <B>above and beyond Salvation.</B> Sure, you can't lose your salvation, but your wrong actions very much <B>can</B> keep you from experiencing the greater gifts that God has in store for you. It's hard to imagine exactly what these gifts are, though, since they come in the next life. What we do know, however, is that they're awesome and abundant, they'll be totally worth what we're giving up now in pursuit of them, and theyll last <B>forever.</B> A sexual fling only lasts a few hours, and the "high" it provides wears off quickly. I'm assuming you're talking about sexual sin here due to some comments of yours I've read in other threads. If not, replace "sexual fling" with the vice of your choice. Same principle applies.

You seem to spend a lot of time looking for people to justify your holding onto your "pet sin." All of us have a pet sin that we struggle with, but even when it's really hard and it seems the sin has the better of us we still acknowledge that we <B>must</B> let it go. We cannot settle for a little sin, though. Even a little is enough to destroy, so you won't find any justification here.

[Prodigal Son]

i don't spend my time looking for justification. i don't need it for anything that i do. i've decided i am too young to deprive myself in this area. i'm sure you've made some of those decisions yourself.

[LittleShepherd]

i don't spend my time looking for justification. i don't need it for anything that i do.

You've posted in no fewer than 3 topics basically stating the same thing. If you weren't looking for justification(or crying out for help), then I don't know what you were doing. Especially in this topic -- you specifically asked if it was okay to hold onto a sin. The answer is no. You've been called to give up everything, including it.

i've decided i am too young to deprive myself in this area.

Then you've decided something that you know is false. My church has a really great youth group filled with people a good deal younger than you(and me) who have all made a conscious decision to follow Christ and to deny themselves stuff like extramarital sex and getting drunk, etc. I've been in a few churches in my time, and I've never seen so many youth so "on fire." The only time you're too young to deny yourself is when you're too young to know what the stuff is in the first place.

i'm sure you've made some of those decisions yourself.

No, I haven't -- not since becoming a Christian. I don't know about you, but the circumstances surrounding my conversion shook me up really bad, to the point that I couldn't justify holding on to anything and made a decision never to purposely do so again. God's also given me this strong desire to prune in my life -- to get rid of stuff without merit, and even some stuff that's "good," to make room for the "best" stuff that Christ has in store for me. Those are the decisiosns I've made.

[Prodigal Son]

i have the desire to stop. i make decisions to stop but i can't. i don't know why. i know it's not okay, despite what i say or think or feel, but i can't help it. i pray to stop but i can't. i've been having sex since i was about nine. that's a long time. it's part of who i am. it's something i can't control. if i ask God for help and he doesn't help me why is that my fault? so i've given up. i'm just going to do it until he stops me. i'm going to do it until he listens to what i have to say. why even bother trying if i can't.

[Judah]

Why have you chosen a cross for your avatar, and "Prodigal Son" for your name, when you keep posting statements that show you are in total defiance of Christ? Have you returned to Him or not?

Jesus said words to the effect that, if you love Him you will do what He commands.

We all come to Jesus as sinners, but sanctification involves daily (hourly, by the minute, every second) submission to His will and allowing the Holy Spirit to work the changes within us.
If you will not submit to Him and His perfect Will for you, then how can you expect anything to change?
You are quite right about one thing... you cannot do this job yourself.
But you are able to submit and allow God to work within you. He does not do this if you will not let Him.

Stop making out it is all His fault. That flies right in the face of true Christian belief. It is wrong; yes, a sin.
You defiantly hate. You defiantly hit back at God.
You must be willing to stop, and by submitting yourself to God then, and only then, will some changes occur.

[LittleShepherd]

i've been having sex since i was about nine. that's a long time. it's part of who i am. it's something i can't control.

Alright, it seems that something really horrible has taken place here, and you've ended up thinking of it as something you are rather than what it is -- something you do. About the moment you said you were introduced to sex at the age of nine I realized that there's nothing I can possibly say that would help. This is an emergency situation, and you need professional help that I'm just not qualified to give. You need to find a pastor or a Christian counselor with whom you can be completely open and honest. Someone you can check in with.

I can tell it like it is 'til I'm blue in the face, but I think you need something more I'm just not qualified to give. Sorry.

[Judah]

Prodigal Son, my previous post was cut short when I was interrupted and suddenly had to go. There was more that I wanted to say.

I have read many of your posts on a number of threads and I am acutely aware that you are struggling to deal with some pretty heavy stuff. What's more, I can see that you have been genuinely trying to turn things around, and I hear your frustration and despair when it seems you get nowhere despite all your efforts.

The fact is, you probably cannot get very far just on your own, especially not with the kind of stuff you have been through in the past.
That was the point of my previous post... that it requires far more than just yourself to be doing the work of changing everything for you.
And for a Christian, it requires submission to God and allowing the Holy Spirit to bring about the changes. A Christian's part in that is the submission to God, rather than being defiant of Him.
And if you are finding that too big an ask, then you also need to enlist the support and assistance of others who can help you do that.

I understand you have already approached a Christian pastor when you were at the point of taking your own life.
That was clearly a step in the right direction.
LittleShepherd is suggesting professional help for the kind of problems that you are dealing with, and I am very much inclined to agree.
I am a professional in that field myself, and also have the benefit of personal experience where I once needed help to deal with the heavy stuff that so negatively affected my life.

Telling you "you must try harder" is no answer at all, and that is the last thing I would want to say to you.
Seeking help in a forum provides very little help when there is so much pain and damage that is in need of attention. We can all give you as much as we can, but that is probably not going to be enough when you have been through the kind of things you have mentioned already.

I felt quite concerned for you when I saw you had not posted for a little while. I honestly wish I could say more that might help.

[Prodigal Son]

i have a therapist but i can't tell him everything. i can't tell anyone everything. besides, i wanted it to be about God, but he's left me. the moment i mentioned that crap here it all went downhill and it's never stopped. i can't find anyone to talk to. there's no one who cares about me. everyone hates me. they see what i used to be and it makes me want to go back to that. me, what i really am is not a good person. i think even God doesn't want me. "nathan is so bad." "there's no hope for that kid." "that one, he's the devil." i'm not even a kid anymore! but that's all i hear in my head. i don't know how to go back to God. i feel like he's given up on me like everyone else, like myself. i know this isn't a therapy group, this isn't a church, this isn't anything close to a relationship with God, but it's the only place i've found nice people, people who have nice things to say for a change. that's partly my fault, i suppose. i don't care anymore about anything. the antidepressants my therapist gave me don't work anymore; it always happens like that. i want to be fixed. why won't God just fix me? no one has the answer to that. and i know everyone here just wants me to shut-up about all this. forget it. i'm sorry.

[Judah]

You have a therapist, but you are choosing not to talk to him about certain things. That's much like going to the doctor with a pain in your chest and not taking your shirt off so he can examine and then treat you properly. Some things are very painful and embarrassing to talk about, but until you do you are keeping yourself stuck.
An experienced therapist will have "heard it all before" but the really hard part is often you hearing yourself admitting certain things openly and dealing with the emotion and insights that arise. It is no fun at all having to go through that - I honestly know that, having waded through the treacle myself! But if you won't then you are stuck until you will. You've got to be pretty brave sometimes.

You at least need to talk with your therapist again about your medications.

You've let yourself be brainwashed by negative defeatist comments. The more you pay attention to them, the more you let them influence you. The thoughts you entertain are largely of your own choosing. Some become habits that can be hard to break, but you are not totally powerless in your choice of what to believe about them.

I personally don't believe God gives up on anyone. His hand is always outstretched for you to grasp. When someone gets depressed and feels pretty hopeless, then it certainly feels to them that God is far away, has abandoned them, and must hate them too. But if you trust your feelings over and above the truth you will find in Scripture, then you are fooling yourself about the nature of God and the relationship that He has with each of us. Don't use your feelings to make that kind of judgement.

And something about sin... we are all "bad people", you no more than the rest of us. In the world's eyes there are degrees of wrongdoing. Someone who tells a small fib won't be considered nearly as bad as someone who bombs a London train. But in God's eyes sin is sin and that is that.
It is rather like trying to say of a woman that she is "only a little bit pregnant" before the bump starts to show. That's a nonsense. She is either pregnant or she is not pregnant.
So no matter what bad things you have done, you are really no more bad in God's eyes than any of the rest of us. It is possible that pride has sneaked into the mix when someone tries to claim "oh, but I have done far worse things than you" and then goes on to think "therefore God must have abandoned me because I am so terrible" and "because I don't feel He is here".

Why won't God just fix you? Well, there are things about me that I would like fixed in an instant as well, without having to do any of the work myself. But if that happened, then I am robbed of the opportunity to grow spiritually through an increasingly closer and greater relationship with Him. If you are a reading type, then C.S. Lewis' book "The Problem of Pain" may help you understand more.

I agree with you about folks on this forum.

[Felgar]

Great comments from the others here - my thoughts fall very much in same line of thinking. You're wrong about no one caring PS; a number of us on here sincerely care and also love to see God change a life. But more important than that is that GOD cares. But what he wants from you is submission to Him. Like everyone else has said, you can't willfully cling to sin and serve the Lord - it just can't work.

It's a good point about everyone being sinners in God's eyes - we are all equally depraved. In the end He doesn't care if you're weak, He doesn't care if you're struggling with life, and He'll forgive what you've done. BUT, He wants YOU, ALL OF YOU. You really need to decide whether you are willing to give yourself up for Him, or whether you will take His sacrifice, mercy, and Love and spit it back in His face. You must understand, that to be alive in Christ is to be dead in sin - it's very much an all or none proposition. If you truly want to experience life - real life - and love, then you need to give your sinful self up.

If you do that, I absolutely 100% guarantee that you will experience life in ways that you never even realized is possible.

Paul understood that to accept Christ is to deny our sin. We are dead to sin, and slaves to Jesus and slaves to His righteousness.

Romans 6:10-13,23
Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ... For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And if we accept that and confess it before God, we have the reward of eternal life, and of mortal life lived abundantly in His service.

John 10:10 [Jesus spoke]
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

Will you serve the thief or will you serve the Lord who gave everything for you? You cannot have two masters.

[JohnWJ]

Hi Prodigal and all,

We are faced with only two paths to follow.

After enlightenment, and entering into His covenant, the seeking of sin or the seeking of righteousness.

We all know where to look for each.

(1 John 1:5-10 NKJV) This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. {6} If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. {7} But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. {8} 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. My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

(Josh 1:8-9 NKJV) "This Book of the Law (the words of Christ) shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. {9} "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

(1 Pet 2:10-11 NKJV) who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. {11} Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,

Participation in acts of sin destroy the person inwardly. Look at children, just how lively they are until they learn some of the sinfull ways of the world. The Lord restores souls to some extent in this life but it can take time, but the new life can be lived before its completion.

A good confession is --

"with Gods help I will learn not to sin and to walk in His ways"

not-

" I am gonna sin anyway"

The Lord does not ask for much of us really but in doing the little that He does ask, He will provide everything else.

(Acts 2:36-42 NKJV) "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." {37} Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" {38} Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. {39} "For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." {40} And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation." {41} Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. {42} And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.

(the real thing, not a church service)


(Heb 11:6 NKJV) But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

JohnWJ.