Most Christians know way more than they obey.
And this is just sad. They know what a sound doctrine is like, they teach others what God’s ways are (that it is higher than man’s ways) yet failed to teach it to themselves.
Even when we lead others and preach to them how Jesus want to live our lives (which is just how He lived his), we still fail to actually live a life in such a way that Christ may be seen us.
Most of the time we know what’s just the right thing to do but we choose to do the opposite because we still let ourselves be defeated by sin.
In order to defeat sin, we must HATE IT. We must not water down the seriousness of sin. Many times we take our sins lightly because we compare ourselves with others. We see ourselves holier just because someone else is sinning “heavier”. In order to HATE SIN, we must not look at others but unto our Holy God, without blemish, and cannot tolerate sin.
When we see how Holy our God is, and how darkness cannot have fellowship with light, then we’ll realize that we must live without any traces of darkness in us. But in order for this darkness to disappear, it must come out into the light. In the same way, in order for sins to be forgiven, it must be confessed to God (1 Jn. 1:9).
Everytime we sin, we choose not to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ in our lives. So to HATE SIN, we must always bear in mind that we are no longer slaves to it, but to Christ.
Yes we are saved by grace through faith. But salvation is not just a past experience. It is a past experience with a present ongoing exercise. So Paul says in Philippians 2:12 to work out, to EXERCISE our salvation. And we can do this “working out” by having the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:3-8) through the enabling grace of God (Philippians 2:13).
Salvation without any fruit of the Spirit may not be a genuine salvation at all.
