What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? (Romans 6:1-2)
I am shocked at what some people today will do and still claim to be Christians. They will blatantly do what the Bible tells them they should never do. The idea that you can do whatever you want as a Christian and still be forgiven isn’t unique to our day, however. Paul had to refute that fallacy, as we see in the above verse. It is a false teaching that says that you can go out and blatantly disobey God, reassuring yourself that “God’s grace will cover it all.” It is a perversion of the teaching of the grace of God. The Bible says that the grace of God is given to us so that we might say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age as we wait for the return of Christ. It doesn’t say that the grace of God was given to us so that we can do whatever we want and break His commandments with abandon. Grace and law work closely together. The law tells me that I am a sinner. Grace tells me how to deal with my sin. While it’s true that the Christian is no longer under the constraint or the extreme limitations of the law, it doesn’t mean that he or she should disregard it altogether. It means we should obey it because we want to, not because we have to.
What you believe determines how you will behave.