Stay Put

DEVOTION

HEBREWS

STAY PUT

Heb 10:26-31

26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people."   31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

NIV

The beginning of a dissertation about not stepping backwards, not going back to the old ways, not giving in to those temptations which war against our soul. Surely the would deliberately is there for a reason. The Greek word carries that expression of voluntarily committing sin, or willfully acting in a manner that is sinful. This is where one denomination gets there definition of personal sin. They say sin is a willful act or violation against a known law of God and therefore that does not include involuntary and inescapable shortcomings, infirmities, faults, mistakes, failures or other deviations from a standard of perfect conduct that are the residual effects of the fall. The question of course how do we tell the difference between voluntary and involunatry? Yet their definition of involuntary acts does not include attitudes or responses that are contrary to the spirit of Christ.  Here again we must consider what Paul wrote in that should we continue to sin that God’s grace will abound? The answer is God forbid! It seems clear that once we accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior, once we declared the Blood of the Lamb as our sacrifice for sin, we cannot go back to living a deliberate life of sin, for if we do all hell will break loose. Yet we also are not to live in fear of God for those times we fail, or fall short of perfection. If every time we make a mistake, we give in to a temptation, we fail, we sin, and we think we are in danger of condemnation and eternal judgment from God, we are simply in error. This is speaking to those who once accepted Christ, turn their backs, walk away, and go back to their willful acts of disobedience to God. They will most certainly be punished, their will perish. If there is ever any more proof that once saved always saved is an untrue statement, this is it. Of course those who espouse that doctrine would say that person who turned away was never saved to begin with, for anyone who is truly saved never walks away. But the fact is some will walk away, and we will see later in this dissertation we are not among those, but let us not get ahead of ourselves. Let is ponder for now on the warning not ever to return to the old ways. That we need to remain focused on Jesus. Yes, we will still commit some sin, yes we will still fail, simply because we are not able to be perfect, but we must not ever leave the family of God for the life of sin and degradation, from which there is no coming back to Christ. Just stay put!