John says, \u2018I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name.<\/i>\u2019 (1\u00a0John\u00a02:12\u00a0NIV) When you\u2019re born again, the only thing you know is that your sins are forgiven and you\u2019re in right standing with God. But you have a lot more to learn. The Greek term for \u2018children\u2019<\/i> refers to toddlers. And toddlers keep tripping and falling. Until they learn to walk, they need someone to pick them up and reassure them that falling down doesn\u2019t mean they will never walk or they\u2019re not part of the family. <\/p>\n
In spiritual childhood, it\u2019s essential that you understand two things: the difference between your stage<\/i> of growth and your standing<\/i> before God. Don\u2019t get them mixed up! Trusting in the finished work of Christ gives you right standing with God as a fully accepted, redeemed child of His. If you forget that, every time you fall, the devil will make you doubt your salvation. When you sin, it doesn\u2019t mean that your standing before God is altered; it means your stage of spiritual growth needs work. The forgiveness you receive at the new birth is a judicial<\/i> act, making you a member of God\u2019s family in good standing. But the forgiveness you receive on a daily basis is a relational<\/i> act. <\/p>\n
For example, when you enter some wrong numbers into your calculator, what do you do? There is a little button called \u2018clear entry\u2019 that lets you erase your mistake and start over again. That\u2019s what the blood of Jesus does. Repentance allows you to override sin by triggering God\u2019s forgiveness, so that the flow of His grace continues. And when grace flows, growth follows. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John says, \u2018I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name.\u2019 (1\u00a0John\u00a02:12\u00a0NIV) When you\u2019re born again, the only thing you know is that your sins are forgiven and you\u2019re in right standing with God. But you have a lot more to learn. The Greek term for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}