What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

Romans 6:15

Jesus preached a message of love and inclusion. That’s a popular half-truth (aka: lie) our culture tells us.

Yes, Jesus preached on the love God has for each and every person. He preached on salvation by faith, not by works. He preached on that salvation being available to all people, not just the religious. He preached against the hypocrisy of religious leaders. He dined with people society looked down upon. He healed the sick, regardless of the day of the week. But He didn’t stop there.

Jesus also preached repentance and righteousness. Salvation is available to all, but only through Him. His definition of adultery was so strict that it included even looking at a member of the opposite sex the wrong way. He really did say to love Him more than you love your family. He commanded evangelism. He said, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

I’ve been reading the gospel of John lately, and it struck me that time and time again as Jesus heals the sick, he tells them to go…and sin no more. He didn’t heal the paralyzed so they could keep sitting on a mat; he did it so they could live a different life by walking. In John 5, he even went so far as to say, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” Wow. And in the popular story, when He saves a woman about to be stoned, He tells her that He doesn’t condemn her…but that’s not the end of the story. His last words were, “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Jesus forgave my sins, not so that I can live like I want without fear of condemnation, but so that I can live a better, changed life – that the marked difference in me would point others to Him. He took me as I was, but he didn’t expect me to stay there.

I am called to a higher standard. I am called to grow in my knowledge of scripture so that I can live a life without sin. Not sin as I or my culture defines it, but sin as He defines it in His Word. Lost people around me will do lost things, but I’m not lost. I know Truth and I want to live according to it.

For me, today, that means giving up something that’s not quite sin and not quite not, in order that I can live above reproach. If my moral standard doesn’t continue to raise, then I’m not growing in my relationship with Him. So today I’m raising the bar a little higher.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

1 Peter 2:9-12