The Christianity I Had Lost Sight of | Misconception 1 Part 1

There are so many different ideas out there about what Christianity is and who Jesus is. Some people believe that Christianity is one of many roads that leads to God, and some believe the Lord Jesus is the only Way to the Father, as I do. Some view Christianity as a free pass into heaven; others view it as a way of life. Some view Jesus Christ as a good teacher, and others view Him as the Son of God.

But what I have come to learn is that the Lord Jesus isn't just who anybody and everybody thinks He is. If we all view Him differently, either He changes or his character is subjective (that is not Biblical, of course), or some people are wrong. And likewise, Christianity is not just any idea someone takes into their head of it; it is what it is, and it is truth.

I have gone to church with my family since I was a baby. I have been blessed and am blessed that I attend a church that preaches the Bible, because the Bible is truth. Even so, along the way I had picked up a few misconceptions, mostly without even realizing it, until I started to wake up in 2017/last year to what I had been missing for a long time. So I have started a little series about those misconceptions. Here is the first one.

1. Come As You Are (and Stay That Way!!)

Don't misunderstand me; I am absolutely not saying people need to try to improve themselves before they come to God. That wouldn't do any good. The misconception is in the parentheses/brackets. We absolutely should come to God as we are, but we are absolutely not supposed to stay that way!!

Romans 6:6-11

"Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I must have missed these verses in my early years of being a Christian (or maybe I wasn't paying much attention when I read them). Sure, I read the Bible (once in awhile) and prayed (before meals). I listened in church and Sunday School. But I was still holding on to some sins. I don't expect that everyone should become perfect when they become a Christian, but there is a real problem if there is a continual, regular disregard of the Holy Spirit when He convicts of certain sins we have done or are doing. I still held fast to my "favorite" sins, such as a "little lie" here and there or a "little" disobedience here and there.

Sins do NOT have size! James 2:10 says: "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all." So if I am a liar or a disobedient daughter, I am also guilty of murder, adultery, theft, and all the others! Why doesn't God have levels on which sins are slightly bad and which are really evil?

Well, I think part of the reason is because every time I sin, not just when I do one of the so-called "big sins", it's as if I am screaming this: "I don't care that God hates what I'm doing! I don't care that I'm being disobedient to Him! You know why? Because I WANT WHAT I WANT!!! I don't care if it's against God's law, because if I want to do it, I'm going to do it!"

That isn't all though. There is something else sin says loud and clear when it is in the heart of a Christian: "Because Christ suffered for all my sin, and I have accepted Jesus as my Savior, I can do whatever I want and get away with it! Yeah, I know that every sin I do is one He had to suffer for. But it doesn't really matter, because at the end of the day, it's about what makes me feel good, not about obedience to God."

Don't think that I am trying to guilt myself and everyone else. My purpose in this is to show how I realized that sin is a serious thing. If it weren't serious, God would not have sent His only Son to die. But He did. Of course, we have to remember that we should confess our sin and receive forgiveness for them instead of wallowing in one of two ditches: continuing in the sin and ignoring the Holy Spirit's convicting, or beating ourselves over the head for having sinned again.

Philippians 3:13:

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.

Well, that's all for this week. I have Part 2 on this misconception coming next week, if the Lord wills.