8077	Forums / Main Forum / Why Faith Is A Must	on: December 15, 2006, 09:25:56 PM
socrates4jesus-You seem to be painting a picture of non-Christians as having nothing but evil thoughts, words and deeds. Having lived through my teenage years as a non-Christian, it seems contrary to my experience. Although i was well aware of my own sinfulness, i had a strong desire to be rid of it and to draw near to God, but felt the distance between Him and myself could never be crossed. I would not call this desire of mine to be reconciled to God \"only evil continually\". I cannot gain insight into your experience as a young man. Maybe your religious convictions were only legal? I mean did the gospel seem glorious to you? Did you have any trust in Christ at that time? A believer is no longer under the law. The Spirit has given believers freedom and the law is no longer a school master. May i get off of my point to you for a minute? I am passionate about this law grace relationship. Why would anyone turn back to the law after experiencing the effects of new life in the Spirit? Why would anyone depart from the origins of the gift of faith through grace and then try to live their lives in Christ under legal convictions? We are dead to sin and made alive in Christ! We are serving a new master, our Lord. The law no longer has power over us. We no longer cringe in fear of the law! The law has only one function and that is to lead us to Christ! And the law is not only the commands but they are also the decrees. The law is not put on tablets of stone in relation to a believer as tho we serve the letter of the law but we serve in the newness of the Spirit. When we were regenerated by the Holy Spirit we were given the power of God, we were given a power that gives us victory over sin. We were made holy definitively. We were given the righteousness of Christ. We then being in Christ are sons by adoption. Christ leads us to the Father. Christ shows us the Father. We are sons of the Most High. We are now in relationship to our Father who bids us to come before the throne of grace and receive mercy. What power the law had it no longer has over us. We do not dread the law. When we hear the law preached we do not live in guilt. We live in forgiveness. But prior to our salvation, and yet being in conviction as a result to us being exposed to preaching we have a legal relationship to the law. When we hear the law preached we live under its condemnation. We want to do what the law says but we are only interested in obeying apart from trust in Christ. We live under the laws obligations. We struggle to obey the law, and in not being under gospel obedience we make a law unto ourselves so that we can think that we obey the law. The Spirit uses the law to convict us and we respond to its threatening by trying to do it in our own power with our own resources. Until the Spirit brings us to the point where we see our inability to obey the law we are only going to dash ourselves against its obligations and threatening. When we continue to reject salvation in Christ we will dash ourselves against that stone of offense. That may be what you were experiencing prior to your trusting in Christ alone. In a sense that struggle was more sinful than some of the really bad sins because it was done in self righteousness.