That's me.
But now I have a match burning.
Well, we are not guilty by declarative statement from the God of all the universe. And even when we habitually sin we still are not guilty by God’s declaration because he is indeed very well pleased in his Son’s sacrifice for our freedom.
Our problem began and remained when we refused to agree with the declaration of our total freedom from the consequences of our sins past present and future.
“And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him.”
Hebrews 11:6 ASV Abraham believed God for a son and God imputed the righteousness of Christ into Abraham not the righteousness of Abraham, God’s righteousness. We believe in God for a Son too and the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us by faith. If we do not believe this because we are caught in and enticed by the lust of the flesh then we can not please God.
It is not faith in ourselves but in his declaration of our right standing in Christ. Sin becomes an addiction when we fail to see ourselves as perfect in Christ and then we continue to repeat the offenses simply because we fail to agree with God’s view of us. Step one for us is to recognize our true self as our new man our newborn human spirit. The epistle of John says that the newborn human spirit is not capable of committing acts of sin. So it is our bodies that sin. Who are we to identify with? The old man or the newborn human spirit? We must identify ourselves anew and reckon the flesh dead. Like Paul we can say it is no longer who we are!
Step two in daily prayer where we agree with our father that our sin is sin. We cannot keep coming to God if we are guilt ridden thinking we let God down. He’s not looking down saying “I can’t believe he just did that again.” He can believe we did it again and he therefore gave us the remedy. Acknowledging our true identities, agreement with God concerning acts of sin that have been committed and faithfulness in the faithfulness of our God and Father to cleanse us from our flesh on a daily recurrence. That my brothers is what freedom with no strings attached looks like.
Joy unspeakable full of glory