" I can do whatever I want, because God will forgive me."
God judges your heart. So with a sincere heart, God will forgive you, because he loves you. The real question is Do you truly love him? If you really love him, then why would you want to do something that would break his heart. We should learn and want to walk as Jesus walked. His passion for us to live a life of godliness goes deeper than we could ever imagine, and don't get living godly mixed up with being religious. He wants a relationship with you. He didn't come that we might have religion, but He came that we might have life and life more abundantly. So saying that, It is not sin itself that separates us from God, It is the running away from God, that sin causes.
"Ok, so if sin causes us to run away from God, what else does sin cause?"
When we sin willfully, it will be easier to sin the next time, and even easier the next time after that. We will start finding ways to justify what we do. The reason for this is, our hearts harden toward the love of God a little more every time we do sin "willfully". You might as well just hang Jesus back up on the cross when you intentionally go against his will. He doesn't ask you do obey his commandments because he wants to sit back and laugh when you mess up. His will is for you to obey him, because that is what is best for you. When you show God, you love him with all your heart, mind, strength, and soul, (which is one of his commandments) ; You in return will be happy, and God then is able to re-route the road of destruction you were on. In John 8:31 Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
" So, If I am free, then why am I not free to do what I want? "
Galatians 5:13-18 says...
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. 16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Romans 7:5-6 reads...
For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
"So, this crucifying the flesh is too hard, I think I am just going to do the bare minimum to get to heaven."
There are many Christians that are almost walking the line of being lukewarm, but to live the "good life" here on earth, we must run as far away from that line as possible, and start running to Jesus Christ. Revelation 3:16 says "So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth." Many will go to Heaven by believing in Jesus Christ, but if you want to life the "good life" here on earth, You must completely surrender you whole life to God. That means giving up all selfish desires and saying "It's whatever you want God, and not what I want. You must become a faithful servant of Jesus Christ, and faithfulness is not doing something right once, but doing something right over and over and over. Your goal in life must be to do the will of God; No matter what the cost. The more painful it is in your flesh, the more you’re growing spiritually at that particular moment. We must “Do what we don’t want to do, to get what we want to get.”
"Ok, I am going to make a list of what to do, and what not to do, so I can make sure I get everything right."
Some Christians make a law out of reading the Bible, or spending a certain amount of time with God, but we should be passionate about reading God's word, and spending time with him because of our relationship of love with him, not because a commandment told us to do so. Jesus said in John 14:15 " If you [truly] love me, you will keep [obey] my commandments. What he really meant was "If you love me, and walk in fellowship with me, you WILL keep my commandments. If you concentrate on loving God, then keeping his commandments will become a natural part of what you do. It become easier to keep them, because your focus is on God and not on the law. It is a promise he makes to you.
Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” So, ask yourself daily, "Am I loving God", and "Am I loving people". Freedom in Christ is letting everything else go, letting it die, so that we can live by the Spirit. When our physical bodies finally wear out, we won’t be judged by God for how much we know or for how well we applied “godly principles” and rules to life. As Jesus Himself said, it will all come down to whether we lived a life that showed we loved Him and loved other people.
