How Does God Deal with Repeated Sins?

I noticed this podcast from Dr. Charles Stanley, "Grace And Continuing Sin - Part 1," and was really curious what his thoughts were on it, as I have a couple of these. I have a great admiration for Dr. Stanley; his teachings are always strong, scriptually sound, and meaningful.

We've all had to deal with coming back to God with the same thing over and over again and wondering, "How long will He keep forgiving for the same sins?" Just how much grace is available to us? Dr. Stanley suggests that if a person is saved, sin cannot terminate her relationship to God. But it can destroy her testimony, fellowship, joy, peace, happiness, and purpose for living. A sinful lifestyle is like a disease and is spread by human nature.

I like how he puts it: No matter how much sin you have, God's forgiving grace has even more. If you sin 10 times, grace (God's unlimited love for us) abounds more. If you sin 1,000 times, grace still abounds more. You cannot out-sin the grace of God. Otherwise, sin could rein over the cross.

If I Continually Commit the Same Sin Will God Forgive Me?

Let's say, you realize your sin, and want to make things right with God. When you go to the Lord, and asked Him to forgive you, what did He say? No way, 596 times, but not 597? I don't think so.

I don’t know about you, but, my sinfulness is too big for me to conquer on my own.  Paul – the guy who wrote most of the New Testament – had the same experience: "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing…What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:19,24)

Of course, it goes on to say that Jesus can and will rescue you. And it will happen differently with different people, and various sins. All you need to do, is ask Him, and He will lead and show you how to overcome. Simple as that!

I think that one of the biggest miracles, is how when we accept Christ into our lives, he stays - forever. We can't do anything about that, either, go out and sin as much as you want!!

I'm very happy that this is His way. I was backsliden and out of fellowship with God for about 12 years. When He brought me back, it wasn't as if I actually wanted to return; I had no thoughts toward being in fellowship with God at the time.

When we sin, and when we habitually sin, we can loose the close fellowship with Jesus, but there is no way we can ever loose our relationship with Him.

Take a listen to Charles Stanley: Grace And Continuing Sin - Part 1.