At FBCF, we are placing great emphasis on simply being followers of Jesus. As Jesus goes, so do we… we hope. One of the ways we do this is by remembering a simple illustration that there are 2 sides to every coin. There may be two different images on each side of the coin but it is still the same coin. And people are able to identify the coin regardless of what side they see.
In our following Jesus, we want to be the same way. The 2 sides of our faith are: loving Jesus & hating sin.
To hate sin means to focus and plan and structure your entire life around hating sin. To hate sin with a passion is one facet of loving and following Jesus.
I know a young girl who recently died from partying. She was a good girl and the events at the party went wrong and she died tragically. It is awful. Her friends now are working very hard to see that things change and kids do not live like this anymore. They hate the partying and they hate what happened as a result of the partying.
In the same way, Jesus died for our sins. He died because of our sins. If you love Jesus, you will hate sin. If you love Jesus, you will hate the sin and what happened & happens as a result of the sin.
My desire is for there to be a people who love Jesus and that is known partly because of their hatred for sin. It is one thing to say you love Jesus. And it is another to focus & plan & structure your life around hating sin because of the impact that Jesus’ death for sin has had in your life. These two sides of the same coin are seen throughout all of Scripture. Here is one verse that emphasizes it. Die to sin & live righteousness!
1 Peter 2:24 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.”