In talking to many people over the years, this vacillating between them being a sinner or saint is the most sensitive and troubling area in the lives of all Christians. In a recent conversation with someone, the conversation led to this person telling me that, they were weary and wishing that, Jesus had come back yesterday. The discussion came up as to us having to examine our conscience and see if we have been sinning so that, we can confess our sins and stay in good standing with God.

This person including myself both coming from a Catholic background, were brought up in the Catholic faith which teaches that, a person should examine their conscience before they go to the confessional, when confessing their sins to a priest. It is not my intention to bash and condemn my Catholic brothers. Giving anyone the power to forgive your sins other than Jesus Christ is one of the greatest travesties ever perpetrated on humanity and that is an understatement. There is not a denomination on the planet, which is not teaching heresy in some form or another. All denominations have their own special rules that go along with staying saved and going to heaven. These special rules are meaningless and only hinder people from growing up and having a vibrant walk with a living God.

Now having your conscience examined is all right, if the Holy Spirit is doing the examining. Let me make something very clear, if you are born again and know Jesus as your personal Savior, only then are you in the family of God and you can call yourself a Christian. A person does not go to heaven or hell for his good or bad works. The only thing that qualifies you for heaven and not hell is, have you accepted Jesus as your Savior and have you been born again. Salvation is not a head knowledge conversation, the Devil knows who Jesus is and he is not saved. Salvation is a miracle of God and is only valid if your nature has been regenerated and the Holy Spirit is actually living in your heart. Scripture tells us that, the day we became born again we were sealed with the Holy Spirit. This was the guarantee of our inheritance and our down payment of all that God has for us.

When we do not have the Holy Spirit, we are not God’s children. Our conscience without the Holy Spirit cannot be trusted to evaluate the condition of our soul because; man was born with an inherent nature or desire to govern his moral life by his own interpretation between right and wrong. This was the curse handed down to us from Adam and Eve’s disobedience for not believing that God made them complete.

When we lean towards our own understanding of scripture, scripture tells us that this ends up in death meaning, there is no eternal righteous merit connected to it. When we use this type of moral barometer for evaluating ourselves, we never get to identify with God’s empathy feelings and really know His heart.

This type of reasoning is actually a demonic influence perpetrated by the cunning of the Devil to keep us ignorant of the real type of relationship that God wants to have with His children. When we live like this, we live by different rules of conduct that we have been taught, but it keeps our sensibilities calloused to a vibrant relationship with the living God of the universe.

How we view ourselves whether to be a sinner or saint will determine the quality of life we can have with God. Scripture tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. A sinner from a non-saved view is a person who has a sin-based nature, is a slave to their sins, and is headed for an eternity in hell. From a born again view, these are people erring, missing the mark, losing their allotment and not sharing in a prize missing the mark, losing their allotment and not sharing in a prize. These are two totally opposite views. Now when we talk about being a sinner the first thought that crosses our mind is, we have done something wrong and God is displeased with us. However, when we govern our lives by this concept or special rules by our own evaluations of ourselves, as far as God is concerned this does not justify us as making us pure in His sight.

God’s intentions was for man to put his life in Jesus hands and no longer lean towards his own understanding to help God out to save himself. Scripture tells us that, if our heart condemns us, God is greater then our heart. At one time, I was deceived to believe that if I was condemning myself and since God was greater, He would inflict a worse judgment on me then I was inflicting on myself. The truth is the exact opposite of this.

If we are born again people, there is no condemnation for us by God ever. The only way we can know we are justified with in ourselves is, us abandoning ourselves to God’s mercy and grace. When we do this, we allow the Holy Spirit the right to create in us a hunger and a want to walk in obedience, because of the pure pleasure of us knowing that we are already complete in Him.

When we who are born again look at ourselves as sinners, there is an underline fear of punishment and dealing with God’s anger and judgment. Scripture tells us that unless we become born again people by accepting Jesus sacrifice on the cross, we are condemned to an eternity in hell. When we asked Jesus to come into our lives, we were adopted into God’s family and we get eternal life with Him period!

Jesus does not need our help with special rules or us having to look for ways to stay pure to be accepted by Him. He has no rules of acceptance. We have to become aware of the fact that, since we are a work in progress and not complete in our behavior that, we need an attitude that allows God to save us from ourselves.

We living with a humble spirit will take care of this problem. This whole issue of feeling accepted by God at all times is the real issue that causes our daily struggle in our minds. When we have thoughts of hell damnation, punishment and judgment, this is the mentality of a person, who thinks of himself as being a sinner. What we have here is a sin conscience mentality. These are called sins of omission. There are also sins of commission.

In our sins of omission, we focus on our behavioral habits and what we should not be doing. This hinders us from pursuing a hungering and thirsting after the Lord with the spiritual discernment we possess. In turn, we never learn about our sins of commission because, we never become aware of what God wants us to be committed too and the kingdom of God cannot be exposed to us, as He desires.

To still be functioning in sins of omissions after being saved for a number of years is a travesty. These doctrines of omissions are baby doctrines that we should have been weaned off long ago, when we first became saved. We need to now go on and mature from here and get into the meat of the word and find out what God has called us too.

There are many references in the bible on the fruits of sin. Fruit meaning, attitudes and deeds coming out in our behavior, which is caused by us having a false concept of what righteousness in Christ is all about. We will refer to what Paul the Apostle says about it, in Galatians 5:19-21 when he tells the Galatians “now the works or fruits of the flesh that become obvious are, immorality, impurity, indecency, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger ill temper, selfishness, divisions, party spirits, sects with peculiar opinions, (meaning heresies) envy, drunkenness, carousing and the like. I warn you beforehand, just as I did previously, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” People who are not born again, have an enslaved nature that keeps them as slaves to this sinful life style, and they have no will power to resist the temptations to commit these sins.

We were all born with an enslaved sin-based nature heading for hell. A child when born has a nature that says, “No to authority.” That is why we have to be born again from above so our basic nature can be changed. When we become spiritually born again we become the righteousness of God meaning, God looks at us without blemish, free from evil and set apart belonging to Him. , free from evil and set apart belonging to Him. The definitions that Paul states of these sin behaviors can be defined much further because, they constantly rear their ugly heads in all circumstances in our thought life and actions and they are intertwined in our makeup. I believe we all are participating in some form of these in some manner. Some of us are consciously aware of doing some of this, but many of us are participating in these life styles unawares.

Sin in its many forms is a stronghold that the Devil has woven into our lives. It’s when we function in the thinking of us being a sinner after we become saved, that allows us to bear these fruits and we can stay a slave to them in all forms all of our lives just as the unsaved.

We all became a permanent part of God’s Kingdom the day we made Jesus our Savior. We need to now become heavenly minded and live as God’s kids while we are in this earthly body. Jesus in scripture when praying to His Father said, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

It has been preached and taught in too many of so-called Christian settings, that if you have these sinful behaviors operating in your life, you cannot go to heaven and live with God for eternity. This interpretation of scripture is so contrary to the truth that at times, as I hear and see this belief being taught and operating in Christians, it gives me righteous indignation. This is nothing more then false interpretation of scripture.

It is necessary that the Holy Spirit takes us back through our false teachings and allow Him to erase the blackboards of our hearts, so He can put truth back into our thinking processes. I have found it so much easier to reach non-saved people, who have no preconceived ideas, and they will receive the Lord into their hearts and grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord because of their non-religious beliefs. We being born again by the Spirit of God is like raising a baby. A baby becomes alive and active when it comes out of its mothers womb. It now has to be trained to not mess its pants, learn how to eat and walk and so on. Does a loving parent throw the kid in the garbage when it doesn’t operate as an adult? A child born of certain parents could later in life change the surname it received from birth, but its d.n.a. from its parents can never be changed.

Therefore, with us being born again and God putting His d.n.a. in us the day we received Jesus into our hearts, our child relationship with our Father God, is permanent and we are forever tied to the Lord. Just as a required for a child to grow physically with loving parents, so God as a loving father with His patience, forgiveness and total acceptance, He raises His children.

When we who are born again believers function in a lack of understanding of the new nature we received when we became saved, we make our born again experience of non-effect in our every day living. This robs us of the power to over come our evil desires and we give in to the temptations of the flesh. That is why the body of Christ is weak and has spiritual palsy in their ability to overcome the evil desires that are constantly swirling around us daily, in our environment. We end up with weak faith and never really believe God’s word fully. I have seen altar call after altar call over my forty years in the Lord and people rededicating and rededicating their life repeatedly. They are forever learning scripture, but never coming to the real knowledge of their position in Jesus Christ.

They have a yoyo relationship with God by continuing to stay as newborn babies messing their diapers and drinking milk to barly stay alive in their Christian walk and all this time God stays faithful as a loving parent always accepting them with no reservation. They end up going to heaven with no rerwards and they never fulfill their calling on the earth. You will either invest your life in something or throw it away on nothing. To me the thing I cry over is seeing Christians living their whole life on meaningless observances that have absolutely no merit as far as Godly endeavors are concerned. This is what really grieves the Holy Spirit.

In 11Peter, chapter three, Peter talks about this concept that we need to have to walk in a freedom in Christ by us not focusing on our behavior and the negative environment we deal with daily. He says, “The day of Jesus returning to the earth will come like a thief, who comes in the night.” He will only come as a thief to those who are not anticipating His return. Peter continues, “We need to be focusing on God’s total acceptance of us because, when it is all said and done this is God’s first priority for our lives. Even though things are coming to the end and we see the ungodly signs and uncommitted people who are only consecrating on their own needs on the earth, we should be living in his righteousness, which keeps us free from sin because, we know that we are complete and in a right standing with God. Therefore, since we are anticipating His return we will be aware of the fact that we are without spot and wrinkle. By not living in spot and wrinkle, we will be at peace with a complete confidence, free from fear, agitating passions and moral conflicts.”

When we get our focus on ourselves, it is then we have fear, which brings with it agitating passions and moral conflicts. This happens because we constantly stay in a double-minded mentality and never become deep rooted in our permenant relationship in Christ. If you understand what I am saying then, you have to be aware of the fact that, Jesus can come back at anytime because He already sees us as without spot or wrinkle. When we don’t know our position in Christ, we believe we have spots meaning, we look at ourselves as a sinner. What we really have are wrinkled interpretations of scriptiure and we are not living in the true knowledge of God.

In 1John, he tells us that, “whoever is born of God does not commit sin: for God’s seed remains in him and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” We as born again believers are no longer sinners because; there is no sin in Jesus. Jesus died on the cross to take away our sinful nature. When we traded our sinful nature for His righteous nature, we became righteous, as He is righteous. If we sin, we are not born again. If we are living in righteousness, or now have taken on God’s righteous nature, we are righteous. You can never lose your righteous position in Christ after you become saved. In addition, you cannot add to your righteousness by any works that you can do. We were sinners but we have been saved by God’s grace. Our sinner nature was buried with Christ and when He rose again and we went through this same metamorphoses with Him. We took on His righteous nature when He came into our heart and we had a witness of that.

As a Christian, we now have to be trained as a child and grow up and become more Christ-like and walk in the Holy Spirit and operate in our new nature. I know in many Christians circles, who preach and believe that, we are exactly as Jesus is blasphemy and repulsive to some in other circles. We need to allow the Holy Spirit daily to wash us with the ilumination of God’s word and clear our minds of our spot and wrinkled mentality.

In 1John 2, John the Apostle makes the statement, “if any Christian sins, we have an advocate with the Father, who is Jesus Christ the righteous.” This statement is a fact that has already been accomplished at the cross when we accepted Jesus into our hearts. He is reminding the people to allow the Holy Spirit to remind them that, Jesus has already taken away our sin as He died and rose from the dead. He has already paid the price for us. How many times do we have to continually go back and be forgiven? It’s obvious that we don’t believe His first act of dying for us was enough. When we became righteous the day we became saved, we became without blemish, free from evil and set apart unto God to accomplish His purposes. This is the definition of righteousness stated in the original Greek translation.

Scripture tells us to fight the good fight of faith. When we fight any other fight other then this type of faith fight, it becomes sin because, rather then us allowing the Holy Spirit access to having Him showing us how pure we are in God’s sight, we fight a continuous battle of checking out our behavior and asking for forgiveness repeatedly.

We become sin conscience when we are blind-sided by the Devil and forget the position we hold in God’s eyes. This fight is, for us to be constantly reminded and staying focused on how pure we are in God’s sight. This is going to take an intense hunger and thirsty after God because it is the only way of staying free to explore our relationship with Him. When we become cross wise with God’s word, our doubts and misgivings come out in our behavior.

Let’s now discuss this idea of us being saints in Christ. If we are no longer sinners then we must be saints. The word for saint in the Greek is hagios: meaning, pure, blamless perfect and innocent. In scripture, Jesus is called the King of Saints. Through out the New Testament Paul and Peter in their letter writing addressed the people they were writing to as saints in Christ. When Paul wrote to the Philippian people to pick just one epistle he states, “Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren that are with me greet you. All the saints salute you, chiefly those of Caesar’s houshold.”

Now I know that there are some of my Catholic brothers and sisters who believe that you have to be a dead Christian with special powers and then you can be canonized and then you become a saint. These special rules and doctrines of devils that have evolved over these hundred of years are a disgrace and only compound and distort God’s word to become! Idolatry worship! I could spend many pages on false doctrine going on in many denominations, but let’s go on.

Now if we do not look at ourselves as having a saint mentality and we judge ourselves as a sinner, there is a basic law of life that God set down in scripture that says, as we judge ourselves, we will judge others. This is a sad thing when we do not recognize our position in Christ. This sin consciousness is a rule that infects the whole body of Christ when people who fellowship to gether have this sick sin consciousness condition. When we have a whole congregation where the true meaning of righteousness is not being taught, it can contaminate the whole congregation.

This type of consciousness is passed on into the families of the church and parents teach this to their children. It becomes a disease and curse that is passed on from generation to generation. When this happens, it cause people to be forever learning, but never coming to the truth and functioning as God’s sons and daughters. I have heard repeatedly that we should not do any judging only God has the right to judge. I thought is this really true? I said, “God did you give me any capabilities to make judgments with the new mind you gave me the day I was saved.”

As saints and having God’s righteous nature, I have found that there is a spirit of discernment given to us by God to judge righteously that most Christians never function in all of their lives. This is where we get into the sins of commision. When we have no idea of the high esteem God holds us in, we never dream that we have any authority to make righteous judgement with the mind of Christ that we received the day we became born again.

Scripture tells us that we are to rule and reign with Christ on this plant. God has called us to be Kings and Priests in His service now and for eternity. Scripture also tells us that, we sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus now. Jesus when He prayed to His Father in heaven said, “Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Since we have the mind of Christ, we are to judge all things. However, we can only judge correctly if we know our position in Christ and use Holy Spirit discernment. . When we have a sin conscience mentality, it means that, we are still a baby in Christ and we cannot function as a mature Christian with the mind of Christ. This is what happens when you do not sit under mature teachers and expounders of the word of God where our righteous position in Christ is being taught.

No other doctrine but the doctrine of righteousness must be laid if we are to grow to our potential in Christ. This is the doctrine that scripture talks about that, the true Apostles of old taught. In many Christian assemblies, we have so-called leaders in the body of Christ getting new converts saved and active so they won’t back slid and go to hell. This type of vision and teaching is ridiculous because, it never anchors and totally cements our permanent roots in Christ. This only compounds the problem because it does not teach the true vision of God’s way of maturing His Saints. When our true postion in Christ is not recognized, we end up being God’s Saints living as cripples because, we never come to truly absorb the love of God into our lives.

Jesus was the first born again Christian among many others. He was righteous in His Fathers eyes from the beginning, so are we. We know from scripture that when He was being baptized at the Jordon River that God from heaven said, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” What is it in our Christian make up that makes us feel like we are not like Jesus who is our brother? To me and many others, it is obvious that, there is not enough foundational teaching on our righteousness in Christ. Jesus was only able to fulfill His calling on the earth because of the relationship He had with His Father. Scripture tells us that God the Father made Jesus to be sin for us, even though He had no sin so that, we could become the righteousness of God in Christ. The word Christ is Messiah meaning, the one who delivers and changes the people from their sinful nature.

It’s only as we function in His Righteous Spirit that we received when we made Jesus our Savior that can give us the power to have this kind of love between God and between one another. It was Jesus walk of righteousness with His father that causes us to live as Jesus did because, “Greater love as no man, then this, that he lay down his life for His friends.” When we have a sinner’s mentality, we only focus on our own needs and selfish endeavors. It’s no wonder that I run into so many born again believers who have been hurt and disillusioned in their walk with the Lord. They have had bad experiences with born again believers and living with a sense of guilt and shame and forever being knocked down, getting up, trying again and the show goes on.

It is the awareness with in me of God’s faithfulness and love in my life and the constant acceptance of me in spite of myself that keeps me seeking after him. It is me recognizing how much I don’t know about Him, which keeps me focused in my daily pursuit to know Him better. It’s my hope that you have an insatiable hunger for a higher wisdom then your own. This is the key to grow up in Jesus Christ. I know that God is faithful in doing His part in trying to reveal Himself to His children at this time, in ways that many of us can’t truly understand. God is trying to teach us how to,

Separate who we are from our behavior and trying to save us from destructive acts that is causing us to harm ourselves.

The only way this will be accomplished is by, us having a quite spirit with in us and an ear to hear the Holy Spirit’s voice speaking to us,