Lessons for Living from the Bible in Everyday English by Dennis Magee

“It is impossible for those who have tasted the heavenly gift and been partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they should fall away, to be renewed to repentance, because they have, to their loss, crucified the son of God, again putting him to open shame.” This is a warning to all of us to examine ourselves to be sure we are in the faith and that we don’t fall away. If our lives bear the fruits of righteousness God will reward us, but if they bear the fruits of wickedness we will be under his wrath and he will punish us. We must produce good fruit in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:8); repentance is not merely a change of mind but a radical change in one’s life as a whole that especially involves forsaking sin and returning to God (Matthew 3:2 note). Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down (Matthew 3:10); this refers to those whose lives don’t reflect forsaking sin as evidence of repentance. God is not unfaithful to forget acts of love that we have done in his name. He will reward us. Let us be imitators of those who through faith and patience have already laid claim to that which was set before them – which is peace with God. Let us cling to Christ as the cornerstone of our faith.

If we deliberately continue to sin, there remains no more forgiveness for sin, because we have rejected the only salvation there is. To ignore such a great salvation or to give up the pursuit of holiness is to incur the anger of God. God will destroy his enemies with blazing fire. When we accept God’s plan for salvation, and accept Christ as our savior, God justifies and sanctifies us. Our responsibility then is to live out in daily practice what we already are in our status before God. To deliberately continue sinning means that we haven’t really accepted God’s provision, because if we had, we would not continue in our sinful ways. We would be producing fruit in keeping with repentance. When we accept Christ we take on a responsibility to try to live a moral life. If anyone who claims to be a Christian doesn’t do this he has forgotten that he has been cleansed from past sins. When in the time of Moses one sinned on the testimony of two or three witnesses, he was immediately put to death. How much more deserving of punishment is the one who tramples the son of God under foot, considering as an unholy thing the blood of the sacrament shed for his salvation. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a wrathful God.

Deliberate sin is rejecting Christ. People do this by abandoning Christianity, but they also do it by deliberately sinning. Even as Christians the things in the Bible that should give us joy often do not, and those things that should cause us to be fearful do not make us fearful. We have become callused of heart and mind, and so it becomes easy to commit some favorite sin. We feel that in the grand scheme we won’t loose our salvation; but the deceptiveness of sin is such that the more we continue to commit it the more hardened we become so that it becomes easier to sin, and even to up the ante until we are committing a sin we never thought we could commit. This can lead us to loving the sin more than Christ, and could lead us to rejection of Christ. Let’s not be like Esau in Genesis who gave away his inheritance for a meal. Let’s not give away our eternal salvation for the sake of a sinful pleasure.

We could benefit from keeping the following prayer in mind: “Forgive me my hidden faults, lord, and keep also your servant from willful sins, let them not rule over me. Do not give me over to my own sinfulness – to my own waywardness. Let me not be among the unfaithful, who are trapped by evil desires, but let me be among the upright whose righteousness delivers them. Save me from my inner faintness.”