As we get into 2024, it’s imperative as professing believers that we get off on the right foot.
We don’t have the luxury to repeat the same mistakes we made in 2023 as far as our lifestyles are concerned let alone continue to excuse them.
We cannot continue to deceive ourselves that it’s business as usual with God regardless of how we live our lives as believers. That His grace is sufficient regardless.
Sadly, a lot of believers today have subscribed to a distorted version of God’s grace.
We think God’s grace gives us the leeway to live our lives anyhowly.
That God’s grace is a somewhat blank cheque of pardon for ungodly lifestyles.
Some have even gone as far as to think it’s a license for it.
This is why you will often hear believers say stuff like:
“I know I’m not living right, but God’s grace is sufficient.“
“God is gracious, He understands.”
“I am not under law, I am under grace.”
Now I believe the bulk of this problem comes from how the message of the grace of God has been presented to us in modern times.
As much as the charge of antinomianism is a good litmus test that you are presenting the gospel to someone the right way, it’s important that this (or any other) misunderstanding be resolved expeditiously.
Now antinomianism is basically being accused of promoting licentiousness or sinfulness.
"Ooh he/she is saying it's okay to sin."
It’s a common charge when you present the gospel the right way.
Infact, this was what Paul was grappling with in Romans 6.
So if you share the Gospel and somebody says,“Well, if what you are saying is true, then I can just go sin all I want?” you know that you have explained the Gospel clearly.
Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones puts it like this:
"If your presentation of the gospel does not expose it to the charge of antinomianism, you are probably not putting it correctly. The Gospel, you see, comes as a free gift of God irrespective of what man does. Now, the moment you say a thing like that, you are liable to provoke someone to say, "Well if that is so, it doesn't matter what I do." Apostle Paul takes up the argument more than once in this great epistle. "What then,", he says at the beginning of chapter 6 of Romans, "shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" He's just been saying, "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."(Romans 5:20) "Very well," says someone. "This is marvelous doctrine, this, "Go and get drunk, do what you like the grace of God will put you right." Antinomianism. Now this doctrine of Scripture- this justification by faith only, this free grace of God in salvation is always exposed to the charge of antinomianism. Paul was charged with it. He said, "You know some people say that's what I'm preaching (keep sinning, grace will abound)." Paul's preaching was charged with it so I say it's a very good test of preaching. The gospel always exposes itself to the misunderstanding from the standpoint of antinomianism."
That said, it is very important that this charge of antinomianism – this misunderstanding that God's grace is a license to sin be nip in the bud and cleared up before it turns into full blown distortion and people go around thinking and preaching that God is okay with sin and "understands it" (If God understands sin, He would not have sent His Son to die on the cross).
This was what Jude had to grapple with in the book of Jude. (see Jude 1:4)
Thinking that God’s grace is a license to sin or a blanket pardon for living anhowly as a Christian is a serious deception that is rife among many Christian circles.
This is why believers will sin (even live a life of sin) and not even bat an eye.
They have subscribed to this false sense of security based on a misunderstanding of God's grace.
We’ve been taught to believe that God's grace is this big band aid that we slap on our sinful lives that makes everything okay with God.
That God is cool with our sins and He just sweep them under the carpet with His big broom of Grace.
However, Scripture does not teach God’s grace as license or judicial immunity – you know, "boys will be boys" sought of thing.
God’s grace is no more a license to sin than electricity is a license to electrocute yourself.
An understanding of the true grace of God doesn’t lead you down a path of careless sinful living but rather, it frees you from it.
Paul says it is the power over sin! (see Romans 6:4)
It’s freedom from sin!
In Galatians 5:1 Paul says:
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."
The purpose of the true grace of God is to liberate the prisoner from sin but if you use your freedom to again enslave yourself in sin, what was the point?
Jesus did not give His life as your ransom so that you can run back to the clay pits of Egypt.
If someone is living in sin and their defense is, "I am under grace", they have subscribed to counterfeit grace.
Paul says the grace of God that brings salvation teaches us to say no to ungodliness. (see Titus 2:11-12)
He goes on to say that those who have believed should be careful to maintain a godly lifestyle. (see Titus 3:8)
The proof that you have subscribed to the true grace of God as a believer is your godly lifestyle.
You cannot claim to be a believer and lack a corresponding godly lifestyle to prove it.
The Bible calls that deception.
You are confessing Christ with your mouth but denying Him with your lifestyle which Paul says disqualifies you as a child of God. (see Titus 1:16)
This was the same charge Jude leveled on those he was warning his audience against in the book of Jude. He says they deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. (see Jude 1:4)
How do they do that? With their ungodly lifestyle.
Infact he calls them ungodly men (a term which can be used of believers as well) who have distorted the grace of God to mean license to live carelessly and he warns his Christian audience against the danger of subscribing to their false doctrine.
As a believer, you need to guard yourself against misunderstanding God's grace to mean you can comfortably live in sin and God is cool with it.
That you can have one foot in God and one foot in the world and God is okey-dokey with it.
Infact, show me a believer walking in sin (even excusing it) and I will show you a believer who does not really understand God’s grace.
As we continue to run this Christian race in 2024, let’s strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. (see Hebrews 12:1)
If Jesus is truly your Lord, it must reflect in how you live your life.
"Why do you call Me Lord Lord and yet you do not do what I say?", Jesus asks in Luke 6:46.
In truth, you must give up your sinful lifestyle, take up your cross and follow Him.
You eternal future with God depends on it.
What a tragedy it would be to stand before Jesus and to hear those devastating fate sealing words, "I never knew you. Away from Me, you evildoer.
There's alot at stake child of God.
Something must give. Something must change in 2024 (and beyond).
God bless you.