Gospelman the Strip: No License to Sin

Welcome back, Gospel Chums!

  Today's Gospelman comic strip focuses on Romans 5:20 through 6:2. When we accept Christ as our Savior, what happens is that we are trading places with Him. He receives the capital punishment on the cross that we rightfully deserve for our breaking of God's laws and commands, but we receive the rewards that Jesus rightfully deserves for living a righteous and sinless life - namely a right relationship and fellowship with God, an eternity in Heaven and in the resurrection in the world to come, an inheritance from God our Heavenly Father as one of His children, etc. When Christ died for us in our place, it created a double jeopardy. We are legally declared deceased according to the court records of Heaven, despite now having eternal life, meaning we are no longer under the Law of God. A person who has been executed for their crimes and declared dead can no longer be charged with sin or convicted and punished any longer. We are truly free. God's grace - that is, His unmerited favor - will always outweigh our sins in life. We are ALWAYS legally right with God, no matter what, even if our sin makes us temporarily not in correct fellowship with God and our fellow siblings in Christ, the church. However, just because we have this amazing grace and liberty in Christ Jesus does not give us a license to sin. How can we who have trusted in Christ as Savior and repented of our sins live any longer in it? Jesus said in the John 14 (God's Word Translation), "If you love me, you will obey my commandments...Whoever knows and obeys my commandments is the person who loves me. Those who love me will have my Father’s love, and I, too, will love them and show myself to them...Those who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will go to them and make our home with them. A person who doesn’t love me doesn’t do what I say. I don’t make up what you hear me say. What I say comes from the Father who sent me...I want the world to know that I love the Father and that I am doing exactly what the Father has commanded me to do." and in Ephesians 2:10 (Good News Translation) it is written, "God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do." We don't live holy and loving lives because we are afraid of somehow losing God's grace and being disowned and sent to Hell - which is impossible as our salvation rests not on ourselves but on the works and substitutionary death of Christ, who will never sin against our Father not ever - but because we are thankful that Jesus willingly died in our place for us, that God has forgiven us, adopted us into His family as Jesus' little siblings, that this great freedom and liberty has been given to us, for God's mercy and grace upon us. In other words, we obey Him because we love Him for how much He has loved us.

"But when the kindness and love of God our Savior was revealed, he saved us. It was not because of any good deeds that we ourselves had done, but because of his own mercy that he saved us, through the Holy Spirit, who gives us new birth and new life by washing us. God poured out the Holy Spirit abundantly on us through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that by his grace we might be put right with God and come into possession of the eternal life we hope for." (Titus 3:4-7, GNT) "This is a statement that can be trusted. I want you to insist on these things so that those who believe in God can concentrate on setting an example by doing good things. This is good and helps other people." (Titus 3:8, GWT)




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