“Do not let your heart envy sinners,
But live in the fear of the Lord always.
Surely there is a future,
And your hope will not be cut off.
Listen, my son, and be wise,
And direct your heart in the way.
Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine,
Or with gluttonous eaters of meat;
For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty,
And drowsiness will clothe one with rags.” (Proverbs 23:17-21 NASB1995)
When we, as humans, are born into this world, we are born
sinners, with sin natures, in the image of Adam, unable to be acceptable to God
in our own flesh, of our own doing. But when we believe in Jesus Christ, in
truth, then we die with him to sin, and we are raised with him to walk in
newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin, but as slaves to
God and to his righteousness. Thus sin is no longer to be our practice, but
righteousness, godliness, moral living, and obedience to God are to be what we
practice.
Now, the Scriptures do not teach that if we sin even once
after we believe in Jesus that we are cut off from God. Otherwise there would
be no need for grace. The Scriptures recognize that we might sin again at some
time, and so they encourage us that the grace of God is sufficient to cover
that sin (1 John 2:1-2). We will not lose our salvation by one act of sin. But
they also warn us that if we go back to living in sin, making sin our habit,
deliberately doing what we know is wrong, not obeying God, we will not have
eternal life with God if we continue on a sinful course and we do not turn back
to God.
So “sinners,” in this context, is a description of those who
deliberately and habitually sin against God, usually without conscience, and
with no regret, who do not make obedience to God and to his commands what they
live by. So, we who have died with Christ to sin, and who are now walking in
obedience to his commands, and who are no longer making sin our practice, are
not “sinners saved by grace.” We are the righteous who have been delivered out
of our slavery to sin so we will now serve God with our lives.
And we are not to envy (be jealous of, desire to be like) sinners
who are still walking in sin and for whom Jesus Christ is not truly Lord
(ruler) over their lives, because obedience to God is also not what they
practice, for they do what their evil hearts desire, in practice. We should not
want to copy their practices or join in with them in what is sinful and
contrary to the will of God for our lives. We should endeavor, instead, to
remain morally pure and upright in all that we do and in all that we take into
our eyes and minds.
For we are to live in the fear of the Lord always, and to
fear God is to show him honor, value, respect, reverence, loyalty, devotion,
and obedience to his will and to his ways, which he has for us to walk in. For
we are to be his holy people, separate (unlike, different) from the people of
the world who are still walking in sin. And we are not to join in with them in
anything that is contrary to God’s moral and righteous and holy purposes which
he has for our lives. So we need to be tuned into the Spirit’s leading in our
lives so that we don’t end up following after the ways of the world and not God’s
ways.
[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts
26:18; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22;
Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews
12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]
All That Thrills My Soul is Jesus
By Thoro Harris
Who can cheer the heart like Jesus
By His presence all divine
True and tender, pure and precious
O, how blest to call Him mine
Love of Christ so freely given
Grace of God beyond degree
Mercy higher than the heavens
Deeper than the deepest sea
By the crystal flowing river
With the ransomed I will sing
And forever and forever
Praise and glorify the King
All that thrills my soul is Jesus
He is more than life to me
And the fairest of ten thousand
In my blessed Lord I see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bdvrL52p8Q
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Don’t Envy Sinners
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