You have heard it said, “Repent, and believe the gospel.” Well, suppose you do not want to? Suppose you do not feel like it? Christians are constantly telling you what to do, and imposing their morals upon you, and telling you how you need to live your life. They are constantly telling you about God’s law and about grace. But you are just not interested. You love sin, and I think there are at least 5 reasons for you to sin.
1 – You do not care about God.
God gave you life, and he created this world and mankind specifically for himself. The sole purpose of your life is to bring glory and honor to God. You were fearfully and wonderfully created so that God could bring you into a loving relationship with himself, forever. He wants you in eternity so that he can lavish his love upon you. He showed this by lavishing his goodness upon you in this life, even though that expression of goodness has been compromised by the evils mankind. God created you for himself.
But the reason that you continue sinning anyway is that you just do not care. You see everything that God has done for you, and you see how he calls you into himself, how he cries out, “All who are hungry, come and eat! All who are thirsty, come and drink! (Isaiah 55:1) Come to me, all who are weary, and burdened, and I shall give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)” You hear him saying that, and you read it in his word. But you just do not care about God, so you continue sinning.
2 – You love the pleasure of sin.
The fleeting pleasure of sin is over whelming to you that you cannot resist it. When an immoral woman (or a man, as it were) approaches you with lustful intentions, you become so weak in the knees and you must throw yourself at them. While you may recognize that what you are doing is wrong, you love sin so much that you continue doing it. When you tell a lie, and you are able to get away with it, guess what that means? You outsmarted that person. You pulled a fast one on them. What could be more enjoyable?
Perhaps it is not only the pleasure of sin but the results that you see from it. When you steal things from another person, and you are able to get away with it, guess what that means? You have something new. You can please yourself and you work toward your ultimate goal: money and sex. That is what you are all about. You love the pleasures of sin so much that you cannot leave them behind. So that is a reason for you to continue in sin.
3 – You want to go to Hell.
Do you know what the most terrifying truth in all of Scripture is? Everything that God has ever done, and everything that he has ever commanded men to do essentially comes back to this one terrifying truth. The most terrifying truth in all of Scripture is that God is good. Now, why is that terrifying? It is terrifying to know that God is good because we are not. Suppose a good judge has a guilty criminal in front of him. If he just let him go, he would be a corrupt and immoral judge. God is not a corrupt and immoral judge. God is good.
Since he is good, and we are not, his wrath abides on us. He must execute his due punishment for the crimes that we have committed against him. You think it is wrong to lie, and you have lied. You have violated even your own moral standards. How much more must you have violated the standards of a holy and righteous God? If you died today, and God gave you justice, he must send you to Hell. A reason for you to continue sinning is that you want to go there.
4 – You do not care about the price that was paid for you.
Two-thousand years ago, God became a man, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus lived a perfect and sinless life. When he was murdered, all of the wrath of God went out upon him. All of the punishment that we deserve went out upon Christ. God is a judge, and we are guilty criminals standing before him. Jesus Christ stepped in and paid our fine. Now anyone who throws himself on the mercy of God and repents of their sin may walk out of the courtroom – God will commute their death sentence.
Who is this Jesus? Jesus Christ is the Messiah of the Jews who was promised by the prophets of old through the Holy Spirit. He was predestined from the foundations of the earth to be the Savior of mankind. He was the human version of the invisible God. He was the Son of God. It took the slaughter of the Son of God to justify people as bad as us. But you do not care about the price that was paid for you. You do not care that God’s own Son gave himself up for your sin. So that is a reason for you to continue sinning.
5 – You have not been born again.
When somebody turns away from their lifestyle of unrighteousness and throws themselves on God’s mercy through Christ’s sacrifice, God will make them a new creature. They are conformed to the image of the Son (Romans 8:29). That means that they stand before God as though they had never sinned, just as Christ Jesus. We had a corrupt and fallen nature, and God gives us a new nature. God literally makes us into a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17), and from our heart comes springs of living water (John 7:38). As we are made new creatures, we are born again. That is what it means to be a born again Christian.
After this happens, we spend our lives striving against sin. While we may fail at times, we hate the sin in our lives and we strive against it. We strive to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). When we fail, our Father disciplines us zealously and guards our life (Hebrews 12:8-9). Outsiders can identify us as Christians because of the good fruit that we bring forth good fruit (Matthew 7:15-20). This is what happens when we are born again. Since you have not been born again, you therefore continue in your sin.
If you would like to get in on the discussion about this, join my Theology Discussion Group!