How Many Times?

"Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself." (Hebrews 9:26 NIV)

No matter how many times we commit sin, the ultimate blood sacrifice has already been made with Jesus on the cross.

Do we really understand the sacrifice He made for us--the love He has for us?

If we truly understood the role of the high priests under the law, then we would better appreciate the fulfillment of the law, with His appearance, death, burial, and resurrection.

But no one can force anyone to receive knowledge. We can speculate, refute, and ignore information, but acceptance is an individual choice and action. For those of us have received and accepted the knowledge that He has made sacrifice for our sins, we should not willing continue to sin--after all, exactly how many times, do we expect Him to sacrifice Himself for us?

Shall we expect Him to appear over and over again to be persecuted and misunderstood, lied upon, treated abominably, judged by sinners, scourged with whips designed to maim and kill, crucified, and died, buried and resurrected--over and over again--just to satisfy the skeptics and those who don't want to live right? How many times, must we crucify Him in order for us to understood--ONCE was enough?

If we believe that ONCE was enough--then sin should no longer reign in our bodies--we have the ability to defeat the desire to sin--so why don't we? How many times must we commit sin just to ask Him to forgive us?

When we repent of sin--turn away--run from--all the temptation to sin, we don't actively, consciously sin any more. Perhaps, the real problems with us mere mortals is that we do not understand--repentance--if we did, we would not keep going back to the cross to gain understanding.

"Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee!" How many times do we submit? All day, every day, 24/7, 365 days of the year--that's how many times and when we keep our bodies under the governing reign of Holy Spirit--we will not sin.

Sin is a choice like anything else we do. Now, how many times will it take for us to understand the one-time sacrifice so we would have power not to sin? How many times?

The only person who can make a decision about sin and choosing to live the life that Christ died for us to live--is us!