1 John 3:9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.

This verse is important and powerful, but it presents difficulties in translation into almost any language beside Greek. For those who study it, Greek is infamous for having so many tenses for the verbs, and this verse is a good example of why God arranged for it to be so. Greek has a tense that can be called “continuing present,” which indicates an action that starts in the present but continues on into the future. Since off hand I don’t know of any other language that has that, this verse is a challenge to translate both accurately and smoothly. For once, the NIV does a pretty good job, while the Japanese fails miserably. The Japanese gives up and puts it all in present tense, just like the King James translation does, and that leaves the reader with a horribly mistaken impression. Reading through this whole letter, it is very clear that John is not talking about sinless perfection, since he repeatedly talks about the issue, especially in the first two chapters. Rather, he is talking about continuing in sin, being comfortable with it. Any true child of God is going to have an active conscience that is prompted and empowered by the Holy Spirit, so they will sincerely regret, and repent of, sin. This is the fallacy of the “homosexual Christianity” idea. Being physically attracted to someone of the same sex isn’t sin, but fantasizing and/or acting on that attraction is. From the other side, it is not sin when my attention is caught by a physically attractive woman, but it would be adultery if I were to act on that, even in my imagination. (Matthew 5:28) Current society is hyper sexualized, and we are told that we are to act on our sexual impulses, whatever they are. That’s a lie from the pit of hell. Children of God stumble, yes, but they aren’t happy in the mud.

This is something I have walked through myself, in an area of personal weakness. 2 Peter 1:9 (he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins) was powerful in liberating me from that, because the devil was telling me, “You can’t help it, because that’s just the way you are. After all, you’re only human.” Breakthrough came when I realized I’m not “only human,” I’m a child of God, cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Paul took the believers in Corinth to task for acting like they were “only human!” (1 Corinthians 3:3) As a pastor, this is a vitally important message for me to communicate. The devil’s lies are strong and pervasive, and we are so used to them that we fail to recognize them. I need to help the believers wake up to what is available to them in Christ, so that they may indeed live as children of God, and not like those who don’t know Him.

Father, this isn’t going to be an easy message to communicate, because it leaves no room for pride on my part. Help me indeed speak Your truth in Your love, so that people may be set free from the lies of the devil to walk in the liberty of the Holy Spirit, for their great blessing and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!