There’s something I have been puzzling about. Let’s say there are two good Christian friends. They both dabble in witchcraft and read their horoscopes every day. Then God tells one of them to stop doing that because he doesn’t like it. So the first person changes his lifestyle, but the second one never hears from God. They remain friends, despite the change. Now why does this happen? Why does God call one person and ignore many others who are doing the same thing? If the activity is displeasing wouldn’t he tell ALL of them to stop?
From a different angle – if you’re Christian and you believe Jesus died to save you, and OSAS is true, why does God call you out of doing certain things? Because if your behavior had no bearing on being saved, then you could go around doing witchcraft or whatever and it would be okay, wouldn’t it? I’m really confused. Please help.
God doesn’t apply His standards arbitrarily. Through His Holy Spirit, He convicts all of us of our sins. Some are just more tuned in than others to hear His voice.
As a practical matter, God dealt with all the sins of our life at the cross (Colossians 2:13-14). Even the ones we haven’t committed yet are already paid for, so nothing we do can endanger our salvation. (John 10:27-30)
Trying to behave the way God wants us to is the way we express our gratitude to Him for saving us. Because we don’t have to do it, when we make the effort it’s like we’re saying thanks.
On the other hand, going off and doing things we know He doesn’t like makes us appear ungrateful and grieves the Holy Spirit (Ephes. 4:30). Our sins also gives the enemy access to us and can cause the loss of blessing or even persecution.
So because it pleases God and makes life better for us, it’s a good idea to avoid doing things we know the Lord doesn’t want us to do.