We don’t have to be good to get to heaven. It is a free gift neither earned nor deserved. We are forgiven of everything we have ever done and adopted into God’s family when we trust Jesus Christ as our personal savior, when we believe the gospel, when we confess that Jesus is Lord of our life.

But now that I am born again my primary goal is to become holy in my behavior as God is holy, to be righteous in every area of my life. and to conquer sin so that it does not control me.

How do I do that? The Bible tells us how to be saved from hell to heaven, and it tells us how to grow and change to become holy and righteous in all of our behavior as a child of God.

The first step is to want to be holy and righteous, to hate the sin that is in you, and to grieve over the things you do that are wrong. Just because our salvation is free doesn’t mean that it is OK to sin now that we are headed for heaven.

Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

1 Peter 1:15-16 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

2 Peter 3:11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,

Romans 6:12-13 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

A lot of Christians have become defeated by sin in that they have tried and failed so much they have given up trying to be holy and righteous, and have settled for “good enough.” God would not command us to do something we can’t do, He would not command is to do something that He wouldn’t give us the strength and ability to do.

The Bible teaches us how to conquer sin, there is a plan, a strategy that works, let’s learn what it is and put it in to practice.

Step one: hunger and thirst for righteousness. Step two tomorrow.