What in the world does that mean? Am I a saint, how can I be a saint? Don’t you have to be dead to be a saint?
Well not really, a saint is someone who is sanctified by God, the communion of the saints, is when we who have been claimed and renamed by God in baptism. We are all saints. But the Bible tells us we are born totally sinful and that sin inhabits every part of us, so we are all sinners. Paul talks about this in Romans 7:15-23 “ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.”
We are under the law of sin, yet at the same time we are under the forgiveness of Christ. We are simil iustis et peccator – simultaneously justified and sinner, we are at the same time saint and sinner. Paul continues in Romans 7:24-25 “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”
So I am saint and sinner, I am at one time bad and good. I believe we can all see this, as Christ proclaims to us we are forgiven, yet then we think of something or do something we do not want to or know we should not do… Paul struggled with it, and we all struggle with it. Our flesh is weak, and our minds know what we must do. Ask God to help your faith become a well spring in you to strengthen you in your walk as a sinning saint!
aSacredRebel 