"WE KNOW THAT WHOEVER IS BORN OF GOD SINS NOT...
The wisdom of the fathers
"WE KNOW THAT WHOEVER IS BORN OF GOD SINS NOT
...but he that is begotten of God keeps himself, and that wicked one touches him not.” Most of our spiritual failures arise from discouragement. We go out expecting to fall, and of course we fall. If we would but know that there is One within who is mightier than our weakness and stronger than all the strength of our foes, and that He is keeping us and will keep us, we should not fear and would not fall. It is confidence that keeps the soul.
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This confidence, however, must be founded upon a right understanding of God’s way of sanctification. First we must learn to distinguish between our new self and our old self. We must count the old life as wholly renounced, and refuse any more to fear or obey it. We must recognize ourselves as having a new life, born of God, and as free from sin, as the Son of God was free from the pollution of the world through which He passed with His immaculate holiness.
Then we must learn that sin consists not in the temptation of the evil one or in the various moods and feelings which he may throw over our minds and hearts, but in the deliberate attitude of our will. The evil thoughts which Satan hurls upon us like fiery darts, are not our sins but his, unless we accept them and endorse them. We can throw them off and say to the tempter that these thoughts are yours, not mine. I refuse them. I am not defiled. I will not sin and I will not fear.
God accepts our will as our real action and counts us victorious according to the fixed purpose of our hearts. Then we must also understand that sanctification is not our holiness, our self-perfection, our goodness, but, as so well expressed here, the keeping of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in Him we stand, in Him we overcome, in Him we are perfect. So He that was begotten of God keeps us and that wicked one touches us not. To know this is to be armed with omnipotence and clothed with victory.
(from "Christ in the Bible" by A. W. Simpson)