STEEMCHURCH : The Controversies on the usage of the word Saint
Hello @steemchurch I was reading an article and I thought I would share what I’ve learnt to the community, hope this helps place someone back on track with Christ.
In the New Testament, the word Saint could be the most frequently used to refer to the Christian individual. Literally, a saint means a holy person. Yet Paul and other New testament authors use this works generously, to refer to common, ordinary, everyday Christians like the lot of us. One of such cases is in 1 Cor 1:2, which reads, "To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place called upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours."
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You'll observe that Paul never said that we became saints by the work of our hands, but he stated clearly that we were saints by calling. Most people live with the belief that saints are people that had earned the envied title by achieving a particular level of maturity or lived a magnificent Life. This is untrue, because the Bible says that you are a saint because God called you to be a saint. Emphasis on the word "call".
We've been "Sanctified in Christ Jesus" this means we're made saints by participating in the life of the holy one, Jesus Christ.
A lot of Christians see themselves as sinners saved by grace, But is that your true identity?, your spiritual identity?? of course not. God doesn't call you a sinner, but as a matter of fact, he calls you a saint, a holy one. If you see yourself as a sinner still, guess what, you'll end up living as one, you'll sin. So why not identify yourself as who you are truly, a saint who occasionally sins. Because in the end, What you do doesn’t determine who you are, but who you are determines what you do.
Yours sincerely Retroville.