Tag: Bible Study

As you know, a forgiven sinner would be somebody who was forgiven, but is still in bondage to sin. God’s Word makes it clear that we not only have had our sins forgiven, but we have also been set free from the power of sin. A saint is a person who is holy, and we are given the righteousness of God through the work Jesus did on the cross:

2 Corinthians 5:21, “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

Unlike forgiven sinners, we have not only been forgiven our sins, but also set free from the bondage of sin:

Romans 6:18, “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”

John 8:36, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

Read More

As I said before, if you look up the word “sinners” in the NT Greek, it gives us this interpretation:

1) devoted to sin, a sinner

Would you consider yourself a “Forgiven person who is devoted to sin”?

a) not free from sin

Would you consider yourself somebody who is forgiven, but not freed from sin? (Romans 6:18, “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”)

b) pre-eminently sinful, especially wicked

Would you consider yourself somebody who is forgiven but especially wicked?

1) all wicked men

Would you consider yourself a forgiven wicked person?

2a) tax collectors, heathen

Would you consider yourself a forgiven heathen?

Basically, a forgiven sinner is somebody who has been forgiven, but they are not freed from the power of sin.

Jesus didn’t just die to forgive us of our sins, but also to deliver us from the power of sin! If He only came to forgive us, then we could use the term ‘forgiven sinner’.

I don’t know about you, but the old ‘sinner’ in me died (Romans 6:11), and was buried with Christ (Romans 6:2, 4), and I am a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17)!

Read More

If you look up the word sinner in the NT Greek, you’ll find the Greek word hamartolos, which means:

1) devoted to sin, a sinner

a) not free from sin

b) pre-eminently sinful, especially wicked

1) all wicked men

2) specifically of men stained with certain definite vices or crimes

a) tax collectors, heathen

This means that a forgiven sinner is a person who has been forgiven, but is STILL in bondage to sin! Are we in bondage to sin? In John 8:31-36 Jesus speaks of believers who were in bondage to sin due to ignorance, but we don’t have to be! In verse 36, Jesus tells us that, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” We are legally freed from the power of sin, but we can remain in bondage to sin due to our own ignorance of the truth!

Read More

This is an important question to ask yourself. Are you merely a sinner saved by grace? Or are you a saint? What does the Bible say about you as a child of God? If you see yourself as a dirty old sinner who’s just been forgiven, it’s going to hinder you from coming into all that God’s given you as His child! If Prince Charles thought he was a street bum, he could be living off the street and sleeping in the park, when he’s actually entitled to live in a castle! That’s how important it is for us to know who we are, as children of God!! The Bible didn’t even call the church at Corinth forgiven sinners, but Paul referred to them as saints, and that was the most sinful church in the early church… they gloated over a man having incest with his mother! Yet they were still known as saints according to God’s Word! God’s Word is clear that our old sinful man has died (Romans 6:11) and was buried with Christ (Romans 6:2, 4), and we are new creatures in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Read More

Those who are thankful for the good things that God has given them will take good care of those things, whether it be their mind, car, body, spouse, children, job, etc. Taking good care of the things which God has given us shows Him that those things mean something to us and we are thankful for them. Not that we ever should worship the things God gives us, but we should take good care of them.

All of these symptoms should not be found in our lives, but if they exist (and I doubt many of us are immune!), there is something we can do about it. Develop a thankful heart! So the next question is….

Read More

This is an obvious sign of an unthankful heart. Greed is a sin that causes us to become unthankful for the things that God has blessed us with. When we become greedy, we are thinking about things we don’t have, rather than things we do have.

Read More

God’s Word tells us that we have been created in the very image of God, and knit together by the hands of God in our mother’s womb, and when we see ourselves as failures, we are in turn being unthankful for the person that God has made us. If we see ourselves as ugly, then we are claiming that God’s creation (our bodies) are ugly. Would you walk upto God and dare tell Him that something He made was ugly? I should hope not! But that’s what we do everytime we look at ourselves in the mirror and see ourselves as ugly. The same is true with our minds and intelligence. Despite the vast amount of technology we have today, to create a computer processor chip that will do millions of transactions in mere seconds, yet weighs no more than a quarter, there’s nothing that man has created that will even come close to the complexity of the human brain. Far too often, we take lightly the wonderful and dynamic gift that God has given us when we consider ourselves dumb or less than brilliant! Each one of us were created in the very image of God, and gifted in many ways, and it is a crying shame when we refer to ourselves as anything less than downright amazing!

Read More

In Matthew 18, we see a picture of the unthankful servant who was forgiven of a great debt, but could not forgive his fellow servant of a much smaller debt. If a person is bitter or hold things against others, then it shows us that they are unthankful for what God has done for them.

Matthew 18:32-35, “Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.”

If we don’t want to be called “O thou wicked servant” on judgment day, then it is a 100% necessity that we forgive those who have offended us. The Bible is even clear that if we don’t love one another (and bitterness is proof of hatred), then we are abiding in spiritual death:

1 John 3:14, “…He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.”

Read More

People who are unthankful will naturally have negative personalities, find it easy to complain about little things, or easily become moody. Their minds aren’t deeply rooted and grounded in a positive or thankful pattern of thinking, therefore when something comes up that pushes their buttons, they quickly forget about the goodness that God has blessed them with, and begin to complain and grumble in their hearts. This brings about a negative/pessimistic personality or mood. This explains the Israelites when they would go about complaining, even after God has delivered them from the hands of their enemies. In Numbers, we are told of how the Israelites were grumbling over the manna that God was giving them every morning when they woke up, so finally God gave them meat alright… so much that they were vomiting it out of their noses!

Numbers 11:18-20, “And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against tomorrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the LORD which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?“

They were unthankful for what God hath done for them when He brought them out of Egypt, and complained about the food that He was miraculously providing for them. He even said that through complaining, they had despised the Lord their God!! As a result, He gave them all the meat they could handle until it was coming out of their noses and was loathsome unto them.

Read More