Is it true that once you are born again it is impossible that you could sin?

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

The part about not being able to sin is true, except it is difficult to understand what that means.

When you are born again, you are in Christ and Christ is in you. How is Christ in you? His Spirit flows through you giving you power for righteousness. Faith is the door that allows this grace to flow through and do God’s works through you. How are you in Christ? You are in Christ the Body as a particular member. Christ the Body is just as much Christ as is Christ the Head in Heaven. They are each complete the other. When every member of the Christ the Body is fully in Christ, that will be called the Manifestation of the sons of God (Romans 6, 7, & 8 and Ephesians 4)

Right now, there is a moving toward maturity. God is moving all of creation, every event, to bring us into the likeness of His Son, Jesus. That is to say that each of us has a ministry. The ministry is not the flesh. It is the Christ in you and the Christ in you. We are not all the same, but each of us is a vital part. (1 Corinthians 12) Maturity has to do with becoming the ministry that we were created to become. We are all in some level of relative immaturity right now. Full maturity can only happen as a corporate Body joined to our Head in Heaven, walking in perfect submission in everything, transformed to be that ministry and assembled perfectly into the Body with the Body walking exactly according to every pattern of Scripture. That is maturity.

Now, you may wonder what that has to do with not being able to sin. Here is why it is important to understand that the ministry in you is Christ. Can Christ in you sin? No! John says this in 1 John. He says that the spiritual man cannot sin. It would be impossible for Him to sin. That Spiritual Man is Christ. He lives in you. He cannot sin. That is Who you are. You are the Ministry within you. You are the Ministry, the manifestation of Christ in the world, but you HAVE a fleshly nature that must die. God wants us to identify with the ministry. Christ in you, cannot sin. Your fleshly nature can do no righteousness.

At any moment, the Holy Spirit is directing you through your spirit and Satan is directing you through your flesh. Part of your soul is your will. You can direct it either to Christ or to Satan. Christ, by the way, means Anointing, which refers to the anointing oil or the Holy Spirit. Satan cannot make you sin through your flesh and the Holy Spirit will not force you to be Holy through your spirit. You are constantly in the position to make the choice. I have seen people go from glory to glory and I have seen others who were deceived by the tricks of Satan and they obeyed their fleshly nature, re-crucifying Christ in their minds and eventually forgetting the glory that they once had. They let them slip from themselves. I always pray that they turn back, and sometimes they do.

In the meantime, even when we are walking in God’s ways, we sometimes sin. The more mature we are, the less we sin. The more mature we are, the less likely that we can be deceived.

There are three basic ways to sin. The original language for sin is much more clear than most translations. There is slipping across a line. There is stepping across a line. There is missing the target. So, sometimes, emotion grabs you and you say a harsh word. You have slipped across, and you pray and God is faithful and just to forgive you. Sometimes, you step across on purpose. Then, you pray and confess and you are forgiven in the same way. Sometimes God asks you to do such and such and for some reason you just miss the target. Then, you confess and God forgives you in the same way. This is what you said in your earlier email so elegantly. I had to get wordy here.

There are some revelations that have been given that are a little bit deeper. God has showed that there is a coming of Christ and also a returning of Christ. Although there are many theories out there about the return of Christ, God has not shown the brethren just how that is going to happen. As far as His coming, the word in Greek is parousia. It means abiding presence. Literally, it means alongside goods or property. This is something that is now happening in you, but it also will be an event of the completeness of it. Whether the bodily return of Christ will happen at the same time or later, that is still a mystery. God has not shown the brethren this. I searched the Scripture and God has not given us a clear answer on it. We could argue it either way, but why would we want to speculate. The way God does it will be just fine when it takes place. (:

What we do know is that God is building us into His Holy Temple, the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ. This is happening from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3). Rather than being conformed to the world, we are being transformed, literally transfigured, by the renewing of our minds. Scripture is very clear that Christ will return for a bride that is without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

Is it true that once you are born again it is impossible that you could sin?

How can we know anything about anything

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