Sinner or a Saint?

Many times I hear people who are saved say they are just a sinner saved by grace, or that we are all sinners. The phrases sometimes can be a little irksome to me because I’m sad to see as Christians we don’t realize our new identity in Christ. The church is having an identity crisis and that’s the reason why a lot of the times we see churches or "Christians" compromising to the present evil times. It’s because we are trying to mix the old man with the new or as the Bible states it we are trying to pour new wine into old wineskins (Matthew 9:17).

The Bible says we become a new creature when we come into Christ Jesus.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! - 2 Corinthians 5:17

So that means we have a new nature, a new name and we now belong to our heavenly Father who sits on the throne.

We must realize that we are now a child of God and we will be called a new name. In the Bible Jesus even would change the names of the Apostles he chose, and if you notice when reading the letters to the Churches in the New Testament they always address the audience as Saint’s now. We are no longer sinners, for if we were Christ death would've been in vain. He died so we could put to death the old man (sinner).

The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. - Romans 6: 10-11

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Romans 6:6

Let’s define what a sinner is. The New Testament Greek word for sinner is hamartolos and it means:      1. Someone who practices sin or is devoted to sin.

2. A person who is not free from sin

3. Sinful and wicked men

As the Bible says there is power in the tongue, and it can either bring life or death (Proverbs 18:21). If you find yourself still being a slave to sin, it’s probably because you’re still identifying yourself as a sinner (or you need to repent and dedicate your life back to Jesus) A sinner is someone who is a slave to sin. In Christ Jesus we are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6:6). If you keep seeing yourself as a sinner, someone who is still a slave to sin, you will keep acting that way.

Think about it, a teacher is called a teacher because he/she teaches. An author is called an author because he/she writes. It’s the same with any other profession or label that you give yourself.

Those who are born again through Christ Jesus are no longer sinners and it's only by the power of Christ that this is so. That’s the beauty of Jesus coming to die on the cross for us, so we can be free in all areas and become totally new in him, in this way we can live a life worth pleasing to God. The devil wants you to keep thinking he has a hold on you. There are so many false teachings that have crept in the Church because the devil wants us to have an identity crisis. But the devil is a liar, we will use the full armor of God and know that we are a new creature in Jesus. I encourage you to live that new life of victory and freedom through God’s never failing Grace. And if you are still living as a sinner, but call yourself a child of God, that's being a lukewarm Christian, and God says he will spit those types of people out of his mouth. Repent and turn to God so you can live a holy life that's pleasing to Him. You can not have one foot in God's kingdom and one foot in the world. You can do this!

God’s Grace is Limitless,

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When God is cultivating You(Part 2)

So on my previous blog post I discussed how God got on me about a few things. Since then I will admit it’s still been a struggle getting up to go to work on time, but I have been pressing. I am just so excited for the day I can work my purpose for God, which I believe God has revealed to me is pretty soon. I actually spent quite some time with God yesterday in prayer and in reading His word, around three hours to be exact and it was just what I needed.  I was reading the book of Matthew and one thing struck me while reading, even Jesus Himself had to be prepared for His ministry He was about to do for God.

After Jesus was baptized the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness where he fasted for forty days and forty nights. The Bible says after Jesus had fasted he was hungry. I am sure after fasting for forty days and forty nights His body was also very weak. And not to mention he was in the wilderness with all kinds of bugs and he probably was feeling uncomfortable, and even after all of this the devil came to tempt him.

With every temptation Jesus fought back with the Word of God. That’s why it so important for us to be in our word, so when anything tries to come up against we have the Word to speak to that situation. Jesus didn't give up, he was determined to fulfill the plans that he knew God had over his life.

Jesus didn't so happen to stumble into the wilderness, no, he was actually led their by the Spirit. God wanted to lead him there to test Him.

Matthew 4:4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

God wanted to know would Jesus be faithful to Him and serve Him only. Actually that was one of the things the devil tempted Jesus with, but Jesus got so upset and actually rebuked the devil telling him that He would only serve God. Amen!

Matthew 4:10 Jesus said to the devil, “Get away, Satan. It is written, ‘You must worship the Lord your God. You must obey Him only.’”

It wasn't until after Jesus was tempted that then he went out and started to preach and teach the gospel.

Maybe the reason why God is not blessing some people with money is because He knows they wouldn't come to church anymore. Some people only serve God because they want to know what He can do for them and not what they can do for Him to advance His kingdom here on earth. God wants us to be responsible when He gives us an assignment, position or when He blesses us with things.  Everything should be to advance His kingdom and give Him glory.

So when I spent time with God for those hours I must say I felt so at peace. I have to admit that is the longest I have spent with Him in a while. He revealed to me my purpose and things that I needed to do to effectively work my purpose.

When God is preparing you do what He says. He is only doing it for your benefit. He cares about you so much.  I am just in awe about how much He cares for me. It really humbles me and I trust Him completely. He knows what He is doing we just have to get on board with His plans. You can do this!

God’s grace is limitless,

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Our Not So Ordinary Courting Story

So as you all may know I am married to Khalid Snowden, that fine guy in the above picture with me! My rock, my best friend, my lover, my one and only, my everything! Ahh, I just love that man! We actually got married November 30, 2012, exactly 2 months ago, so happy two month anniversary to us!!Yay! I know there is going to be plenty of more time for us to grow together and spend the best time of our lives together. I am so excited to spend this journey in life with him and for us to grow old together. I will discuss in another post on how we met…

To begin I want to share a testimony of how God completely changed our lives. When we first got together we weren't saved in the least. It was our senior year of High school and then we both decided to move in together with roommates that we knew for our first 2 years of college. Mind you we were raging sinful teens when we first started to date and didn't do things God’s way at all. And let me just tell you this doing things your own way is NEVER a great option and it will always, always lead to destruction. It is NEVER OK to put your girlfriend or boyfriend before Christ. We submitted to the lust of the flesh and disregarded God’s law. And as the consequence of our sins this lead to many arguments and break ups to make ups. It was like there wasn't a day that went by that we wouldn't be going off on each other. And then when we did get saved at one point we were kind of up and down with that too, we were like those “sorta, kinda Christians.”

Finally there came a point to when the arguments ceased for a bit after a really big argument had escalated. We decided we should really start maturing if we really loved one another. We started loving God more than we loved each other and we wanted to begin taking our walk with God seriously. God convicted us that if we were going to profess to be Christians it was high time that we started acting as ones. God became number one in our lives and we really started to serve Him. We made the decision to stop dating and start courting. There is a difference between the two and I will also be making a post on that topic later as well.

When we started courting it took some getting used to at first, but God’s grace is truly sufficient. Through His grace we were able to break the power of the lust of the flesh. We were still room mating with friends at the time. It was a 3 bedroom apartment with four people. But being now committed to our relationship with Christ we started taking turns sleeping on the couch. We stopped kissing and even stopped holding hands. He wanted to wait until we were married to kiss because kisses are powerful and can lead to something more that you have no business doing until marriage. Read my article here concerning the The Power of a Kiss.

I saw a real change in my now husband. He inspired me and encouraged me to run after God with my full heart even more, as he still does to this very day. His love for God and his servitude for God truly amaze me.

And as a reward of being obedient to God and doing things His way we reaped the benefits. We learned how to talk things out if we disagreed with anything instead of arguing. We actually don’t argue anymore, and by argue I mean yelling at each other and disrespecting one another. We do have disagreements, but we talk them out with respect versus arguing. At first I thought this was impossible when my pastor would say to the church that her and her husband never argues. I thought “as if!” But after taking the psychical aspect out of the relationship we learned one another and we begin to know each other from spirit to spirit instead of flesh to flesh. We have to remember we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but we are spirits in a human body having a human experience. If you can’t get to know a person from their spirit and it always requires something psychical then your love for them is conditional. You love the feeling and not the person because their spirit, which is who they really are, should be enough to satisfy you to the point of no fornication.

Us in our courting stage, notice the space between us, lol.

We did make the huge mistake of moving into a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom because we couldn't find any roommates that we could separately roommate with when our lease was finally up with our previous roommates. Our previous roommates decided to get their own places so that option was off the list. It was still a new city for us at the time, because we moved from our hometown to go to college. We didn't want a stranger because we didn't want to go through the nightmare of having a complete stranger who was an immature college kid. Granted, we regretted moving in together to the point that we became willing to move in with a perfect stranger even if they turned out to be psycho. We just wanted to please God and not allow what is good to be spoken evil of.

Even so we couldn't change the matter. We couldn't move back home with our parents since they lived so far away and we couldn't break the lease. We decided we were going to continue to keep our boundaries. We still wanted to live for God because that was our first heart's desire is to please Him. We made the mistake of moving in together, but we were still going to be accountable, and we weren't going to be having sex outside of marriage and sinning against God. We did tell our pastor about it, because we didn't want to hide something like that away from our leaders. Of course she didn't encourage it, but God confirmed to her that we were setting boundaries and not fornicating, she saw the love we had for God and our actions did match up with our words.

So how were we able to live together without fornication? We SET boundaries and we KEPT them!

1.       We always kept God First.

Before there is Khalid there is God, and before there is Shaniqua there is God. We love Him more than we love each other so in that way we respected and honored His ways before our own. His ways actually became a part of us because we loved Him so much.

2.       We slept separately in separate beds.

You can’t expect to fight off temptation but invite it into your bed.

3.       We did not walk around naked or in boxers.

My body was not officially his yet so in order for him to see the goodies, we had to be married first, flaunting off your stuff inevitably causes lust, point blank and we can't cause others to stumble. 

4.       We didn't kiss, hold hands or get intimate in any type of way.

We kept away all that would lead to temptation.

Of course there were people who talked about us and didn't believe we were keeping ourselves pure, but I learned to tune them out. As long as we were staying abstinent and God and my Pastor knew that we were, then we were holding ourselves responsible. Let’s get this clear, I am in NO WAY CONDONING for couples to live together before marriage. That does not please God. This is just my testimony and one that I hope can help others from making the same mistake, or if you are in a similar situation without any type of way to get out of it, that you can still put God first and remain abstinent before marriage. Whether you have backslidden or slipped up, it’s never too late to start living for God, God can grab you out of any mess and turn it into a beautiful message, but we have to at some point stop the backsliding and the back and forth and remain faithful to Him because the word says in John 14:15 If you love me, you will obey what I command.

While living together we learned the power of God's grace and how it can keep you. We didn't allow for there to be any temptations. We didn't allow for each other to kiss one another, or fondle one another. We were basically living as roommates. Of course I was excited for the day for us to marry, but I didn't let my mind wander to that far in time. I wasn't going to open the door for the enemy even one bit because my heart, mind, body and soul belonged to Jesus. If I claimed to love Him, I was going to obey Him like His Word says.

Courting removes all of the psychical and places it on what’s inside of the person; their thoughts, their ways, their future. And once Christ became a part of us I loved what was inside of my now husband even more. Words can’t even describe how much I love Him. I am so glad God came into our lives and turned everything new for His glory.

We kept off marriage for awhile because we were college kids dependent on financial aid, we weren't sure if the aid was going to get reduced or cut off if we got married so we originally set a date for 2013. Then we started discussing it with one another again and decided why wait? It wasn't because we were struggling, like I said the barriers we placed plus God’s grace helped us not to struggle with lusting after one another. We didn't want to wait anymore because our source came from God, not financial aid. And also God was taking us higher in Him and in ministry. We didn't advise such a thing for anyone to live with their boyfriends/girlfriends and we didn't want our good to be spoken evil of. Not to mention we didn't want to look like the world and do what the world does. Nowadays people think it's OK to move in before marriage, but that's not so. Besides we loved one another, was equally yoked and on the same page so marriage was just a natural thing for us to do.

God was so gracious to us while we lived together because He saw our dedication to serve Him. We weren't going to let our mistake steer us off the path of righteousness. We were going to obey God and do as He said by honoring His word.

When we got married everything felt like new. Our marriage day was the best and most joyful day of my life, besides the day I invited Jesus into my heart. We didn't put on a grand show for our wedding, that will come later, but everyday with him is already like a celebration. So here starts a new journey and as always God will be leading the way. And I know wherever God leads, my husband and I are headed in a good place to give Him the glory.

So honor God through everything you do and I can guarantee you that you’ll reap the great benefits He has for you if you obey Him. There is so much great things God has in store for my husband and I, and it all starts with obedience. Stay strong and be encouraged. You CAN do this!

Love and happiness, 

♥Shaniqua

Throwback pic of us. My have we grown.

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