Expert: Thurman C. Petty, Jr. - 5/21/2009

Question
QUESTION: Well when you say you want me to give my life to Him,are you saying that I haven't already given it to Him?

ANSWER: What I mean, is that we need to give ourselves to Jesus every day. Jesus is our best friend, and a friendship can only survive when there is communication between the friends.

With Jesus it is even more important, because He died for us, has forgiven our sins, and plans to take us to His place so we can not only talk to Him, but we'll be able to see His beautiful face, and throw our arms around Him in a big bear hug!

That's what I mean when I say "give your life to Him." I mean keep on giving it to Him day after day. Yesterday's surrender is not enough for today. We need to give ourselves to Him today too.

God bless,
Thurman

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: So does that mean that we have to ask for forgiveness everyday?

ANSWER: Corrina,

I do. I know that there are sins that I commit that I don't realize are sins--I don't know that what I'm doing in these things is sin. But Jesus knows that I'm ignorant of these sins, and when I ask Him to forgive them--every day-- then He forgives them and keeps me close to Himself.

Don't concentrate on the sin; concentrate on Jesus who forgives the sin, and then go on in the daily actives believing that Jesus has forgiven us.

Have faith in Jesus: He'll help you to grow so that eventually you won't even sin any more.

Thurman

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Is it true that even though we are saved,we still sin,is that true?

Answer
Dear Corrina,

Yes, it's true. Long before we were born, Adam and Eve gave in to sin, and ever since our brains have been programmed to sin--just like a computer is programmed to do its work.

Jesus died on the cross to save us from sin. When we accept Him as our Savior, He saves us from the power of sin. That means, as we stay close to Jesus day by day, He can overcome sin through us as we are tempted. He makes it possible for us the resist temptation--Satan cannot force us to sin.

When Jesus comes the second time He will save us from the presence of sin by taking us away from the sin-polluted earth.

When we talk about being "saved," we cannot say that we are transformed into a state where we will never sin again. Nor can we say, as some believe, that we will be given Heaven no matter what we do. In that sense, all we would have to do is say, "I accept Jesus as my Savior," and God would be obligated to save us no matter what we did. That would force God to take vile sinners into heaven, just because they at one time confessed to be a Christian.

I think you can see that the word "saved" doesn't really fit into our relationship with Christ. Actually, it would be more correct to say, Jesus saved me from all the sins of the past, and He is saving me day by day of the temptations I meet, and He will save me from sinful earth when He comes the second time.

I hope this is not confusing to you. I'm still waiting for your answers to my questions about the kinds of soil that the seed fell into.

I pray for you every day. Do you pray for yourself?

Thurman