Dear Paul:
Jesus said to 'go your way and sin no more'
In reading the biblical context of Jesus’ statement, you will note that he was talking to a woman who had been caught in the very act of adultery. No one who wanted to condemn and stone did so because none of them was without sin. They all left the scene. Jesus then asked the woman, ‘did no one condemn you’? She said, ‘no, not one.’ He then said, ‘Then neither do I condemn you. Go your way and sin no more.’ Thus, in the context of this narrative, Jesus was not talking about being sinless, he was talking about going one’s way and striving not to commit a similar sexual sin. But note, he did not condemn her for committing a sexual sin.
and the bible also says not to 'use the grace of God as an excuse to sin'.
Yes, the Bible does state this. What’s so hard to understand about this statement? It seems a “given,” yes?
However the bible also says that 'all sin and fall short of the glory of God'.
Yes, the Bible also states this. So . . . what’s your point? Simply put, ALL have sinned. Jesus himself stated that one of the reasons he came was to ‘call sinners’—not the righteous.
This means that we can only partially obey the commandment to be sinless.
There is absolutely no command in scripture (or the Bible for that matter) which states that we must be sinless. Where did you get that? The Bible admonishes us to try hard not to sin but nowhere does it state that we must be sinless. On the contrary, the apostle John writes that IF we sin, we have a Help with the Father, a righteous one. Paul, we are going to sin—we are sinners. But we should strive to do our best not to sin. But we have a Helper.
This fills me with as much anxiety that I had while being a Witness.
Let go of the anxiety. Jesus stated: “Do not be anxious.” Pretty clear cut, yes? “Do not be anxious over anything.”
How can I know if I'm being "good enough" for God?
Jesus made the statement that ‘no one is good except God.’ That being said, you, nor I, nor any other human being can be ‘good enough.’ Paul, where do you get this kind of thinking?
Since I can't be sinless, there must be some arbitrary cut-off point where I'm just not good enough.
True—you cannot be sinless. Deal with it. You will never be good enough. It is Jah and His Son who are good and because they are good, they fill the gap so that you can receive their loving-kindness and mercies and love and life and salvation, etc., etc., etc. They do it for you.
There's got to be a point when I've just committed one to many sins.
It is stated in the Bible that the ‘wages of sin is death.’ There is no such thing as ‘one to many sins.’ Adam and Eve committed only one sin initially which caused them to have to pay the price for that one sin—death.
As someone once asked 'am I going to die because I masterbated one to many times'?.
If you have masturbated even just one time (and if masturbation is a sin), then you have to pay the price—death. It is not about ‘ONE TO MANY TIMES.’ That’s it, that’s all.
You are forgetting the most important thing: Jah is a God of love, merciful and abundant in loving-kindness. That is why he sent his Son, to reconcile us to Him. You are being called. Come to me (Christ), Christ says. He is the resurrection and the life.
no He Isen't
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