I have just been in conversation with someone who told me
that it does not matter what we do, because God looks at the heart.
The problem with this mentality is that God never gave us
principles to follow because they didn't matter, He gave them expecting us to
obey.
I grow weary of those that think that sin and disobedience
to God's principles are unimportant as long as we are born again. God says, if
we are born again then we hate sin, we love to obey.
Those who refuse to be corrected, hanging onto their idols
with tenacity while claiming to love that which offends God, places a question
in my mind, how could it be that someone who has been made into a new creation,
kicks against the goad when challenged with Scripture to evaluate their actions
and attitudes.
Having come out of a religious system that encouraged idol
worship, I can no longer tolerate any form of idolatry.
Romans 6
King James Version (KJV)
1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that
grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any
longer therein?
3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into
Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death:
that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,
even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of
his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that
the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall
also live with him:
9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no
more; death hath no more dominion over him.
10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that
he liveth, he liveth unto God.
11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto
sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye
should obey it in the lusts thereof.