Are You a Tiptoe Christian?

(Christian: Do you tiptoe back and forth across the line to your old sins?)

Christian, before you were soundly saved, you lived for the pleasures of the flesh. Then when God opened your spiritually blind eyes, when He unhardened your hard heart, He granted you repentance toward Himself and faith toward Jesus Christ our Lord. When God saved you, then you were at the starting line. (This post is for Christians. If you are not a follower of Jesus, please go to My Testimony or Ten Commandments).

You are now a Christian. But what are you doing from here? Are you still a new babe in Christ? Are you only able to take the milk of the Word? Are you progressing on your path of sanctification? Are you moving closer to God? Not under your own power, but under the power of the Holy Spirit?

Or are you stuck at the starting line or even worse yet, are you tiptoeing back into your old sins? Are you a tiptoe Christian? When you are saved, truly saved, born again (John 3:3-7), then you are saved. But salvation is the starting line. Don’t get me wrong, if you are truly saved, then you are saved. No one can take you out of God’s right hand if you truly have been born again. But are you living at the starting line? Worse yet, have you slid back across the line, back into the sins that once held you captive? (Read Romans 6:6-12).

Once God saves you, then He sends you the Comforter, the Holy Spirit who resides inside you. God immediately starts working on you (little by little) to transform you into the person He wants you to be. We won’t be fully sanctified this side of Heaven, but God starts working on us immediately after we are born again. God wants us to be holy because He is Holy.

Have you truly repented of your sins or are you tip toeing back and forth across the starting line (2 Corinthians 7:10)? You may say, well I just can’t help it, the devil made me do it. Or you may say, I can’t help it, I’m just a weak human being. Yes, we are weak human beings. We are frail on our own, but we have Holy Spirit living inside us! If God is for us, who can be against us? Jesus overcame the world and we can be victorious through Him.

Look at 1 Corinthians 10:13. There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

God doesn’t tell us that life will be all roses and everything will be peachy keen after you come to salvation. No the Bible tells us that we will have trials and temptations. But God promises us a way of escape from temptation, each and every time. So are you growing in your faith or are you still tip toeing around with sin? Are you stuck at the starting line or going backwards or are you in the race? The apostle Paul said that we are to run the race and run it to win it (1 Corinthians 9:24) and we are to show self control over our own body.

No matter what temptation you fight, no matter what demon you fight, God can help you overcome it. We are victors through Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you have a problem with pornography? Then don’t turn on your computer! Or if you must use the computer, install an accountability program like FamilyShield. Do you have a problem with lust? If so, every time you catch yourself lusting after a someone, have a Bible verse ready to help you through it.

I personally still fight this one. So for example, if I’m driving down the road and I look over and see a woman jogging, I immediately look away and pray to God that He will save that woman if she isn’t saved? I ask Him to send her a messenger, a Christian who will proclaim the true Gospel to her if she is not saved. It’s hard to have impure sexual thoughts about someone if you are praying for their salvation.

Pride is the demon I fight the most. The devil works on me the most on this one through ministry. I know upfront that this is my weakness. So I pray about it and I read the Bible. The more I pray and the more I read the Bible, the more I praise and glorify God. I frankly drive my family nuts by singing old hymns around the house all the time. But I can’t help it. I love to praise God. You can’t be prideful when your focus is on Jesus Christ our Lord. So how about you Christian; is your focus on God? How is your prayer life? Do you read the Bible every day?

My goal is to draw closer to God all the time. My goal is to spend and be spent for the kingdom of God; all for His honor and glory. My desire is for God to empty me of me and fill me with the fruit of the Spirit and renew the Holy Spirit within me. My desire is for God to cleanse me of all unrighteousness and for Him to give me clean hands and a pure heart. My desire is for God to use me to reach this lost and dying world; to proclaim the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord!

What is your desire? What are your goals? Are your thoughts Christ-centered or self-centered? Are you focused on Jesus or on yourself? Yes, we all stumble. We are not perfect and we won’t be in this life. But repentance is not a one-time event. God continually convicts us of our sins – if we pray regularly to Him and if we read the Word daily. God recently convicted me of some of the movies that I had in the house and some of the music on my computer – after hearing a great sermon on the topic.

Are you open to God’s correction? God chasen’s those He loves (Proverbs 3:12). The same way a parent corrects a child when they’ve done something wrong. We don’t punish a child because we enjoy punishing them. No, we punish a child because we want to correct their bad behavior. We want them to understand that a certain behavior is wrong and that we want them to turn away from that bad behavior. God does the same thing with true followers of Jesus.

A.W. Pink said, “Salvation means being reconciled to God: and that involves and includes sin’s dominion over us being broken, enmity within us being slain, and the heart being won to God. This is what true conversion is: it is a tearing down of every idol, a renouncing of the empty vanities, of a cheating world, and taking God for our Portion, our Ruler, our All in all. Is God your All in all? Please turn from your sins and forsake your sins.

If you are stuck in the mire of sin, whatever your sin of choice is, you can break free from that bondage of sin (Romans 6:18). Cry out to God to strengthen you with His strength, pray that God will help you overcome your problem, whatever it is. Then prepare yourself for battle each and every morning. Start off the day acknowledging the sins that are likely to snag you, and prepare by memorizing a Bible verse to help you combat that sin before the temptation comes.

Be proactive. Pray, read the Bible, memorize Scripture, share your faith with others and praise God. Again, it’s hard to continue in sin when your focus is on God. Praise Him, Praise Him, tell of his excellent greatness. Praise Him, Praise Him ever in joyful song. Do these things and remember that God promises to always give you a way of escape. Take the escape hatch and allow God to sanctify you more and more all the time. Shouldn’t our goal as Christians be to become more Christ-like every day? Don’t be a tiptoe Christian. Be completely sold out for the Lord!