“I know it’s wrong, but I’ll just ask God to forgive me afterward.”
Have you ever entertained that thought?
Perhaps we don’t say it quite that bluntly. Instead, we tell ourselves:
God understands.
Everyone sins.
I’ll deal with it later.
After all, God promises to forgive us.
And every one of those thoughts can contain enough truth to make a dangerous lie sound reasonable.
God is patient. He is merciful. And He does forgive His children when we genuinely repent.
But does that mean we can deliberately choose to disobey Him while planning to repent afterward?
Scripture calls sin deceitful, and one of its greatest deceptions may be convincing us that we can choose the sin while somehow controlling what happens next.
We can’t.
But there’s an even more sobering problem with the attitude, “I’ll sin now and ask forgiveness later.”
It may reveal something far more serious than a moment of disobedience.
What could it reveal about our relationship with God?
We’ll talk about that today, along with chocolate-covered dirt, foolish talk, and why something we dismiss as “just a joke” may not be funny to God.
How can you know that you truly belong to Christ? Is it because you prayed a prayer, walked an aisle, were baptized, joined a church, or had an emotional experience years ago?
Paul told the Corinthians:
“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!” —2 Corinthians 13.5
There is no more important question we can ask ourselves. Yet biblical self-examination isn’t about looking for enough good works to earn salvation. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
But genuine saving faith does produce something. A redeemed life begins to bear fruit—not perfectly and not all at once, but genuinely.
So what should we look for? How can we test ourselves without either trusting in our works or giving ourselves false assurance?
If you’re not sure where you stand with God, don’t leave it to chance.
Plagues and epidemics have been part of human history since the fall of man. Of course, the latest one is COVID-19 and all of its variants. But there is a plague that is even more contagious and disfiguring, the plague of sin. Paul warned us about contagious sins. We can pick them up from others and, worse yet, we can be carriers spreading them to those around us.
Have you allowed yourself to be exposed to some contagious sins? Are you protecting your family from over-exposure to them? Or worse, could you be guilty of spreading contagious sins to others?
