I believe the biggest problem new Christians face is not the sins that they committed before coming to know Jesus, but the sins they have committed since that time. Their biggest issue is whether God, their heavenly Father, accepts them — even though they sin from time to time after being forgiven.
Someone has said: “God loves us the way we are, He just doesn’t want us to stay that way.” He wants us to be seen by those on earth as sinless as He sees us already through the finished work of His beloved Son.
To most people the fear of illness or the loss of a loved one is paramount, but a Christian’s greatest fear is of God’s disapproval: a personal uncertainty as to how, given their sins and shortcomings, the relationship with God and Jesus that began with the assurance of past sins forgiven, can continue, given their self-condemnation.
Their inability to accept that their first sense of spiritual cleanliness continues and their relationship still stands. In short, whether a holy God can love those who’ve been forgiven, yet sin again from time to time. Self-condemnation allows Satan to accuse them of being hypocrites — and for them to agree with their enemy’s accusation.
Why is it that when some Christians think of the Hebrew/Jewish faith they think of Moses and Law, rather than Abraham and Faith? Abraham lived 350 years before Moses and 430 years before Moses received the Law at Mt Sinai. The promise to Abraham was realized in the person of Jesus Christ.
We are the children of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ. “The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17) Abraham is the father of our faith, not Moses, and we’ve been pardoned, not placed on a suspended sentence that is based on our good behaviour. When a person is pardoned, his or her criminal record is deleted and so can never be used in an accusation.
Faith based on Moses and the Law that God gave through him brings condemnation. (“The Curse of the Law”.) That was the Law’s intent. It was “our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ”. But faith based on Abraham and Jesus brings grace and freedom. We keep the Law not by trying to do so but because our nature is to do so. Christianity is not a “must do” religion but a “want to do” relationship and loving fellowship with God our Father through His Son. I wouldn’t swap it for the world!