GOD'S STEWARDS ARE
SAINTS AND SINNERS
God's stewards rejoice in and live out what God has declared them to be through the cross.
At the same time His stewards recognize they are sinners who fight sin and its consequences each day.
This third principle underscores the classic Lutheran
understanding, that we are at the very same time saints and
sinners. Reflect on how we are declared righteous saints through
Christ and how, at the very same time, we struggle with sin of
every kind. Paul’s words in Romans 7:21-25 describe the conflict
we live with each day.
Rom. 7:21-25 So I find this law at work: When 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 the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
What does God's Word say about this?
Eph. 4:22-24 You were taught, which regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (cf. Col. 3:5-17)
1 John 3:1-2 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.