sinless?

Well, I know I'm a sinner. I also think I know God. But, apparently the two don't go hand in hand?

"No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him." (1 John 3:6).

Dissonance. That is what this verse creates in my heart. Why? Because God's Word is truth, and this seems so false.

This truth is both convicting and comforting. It even kinda makes me angry. ("Don't you dare tell me that I don't know God.") It is almost incentive to prove this verse because it seems so unrealistic to my worldly ears?....which is most likely the reason God spoke it in the first place. But, there is also a message of hope that seems as if it IS possible to NOT sin? I mean, is it? That's what it sounds like to me. I can't even picture that...to be so IN Christ that I not sin. Again, not possible....because only the Son of God is capable of being sinless. Nonetheless, I want to STRIVE.

I know I'm saved by grace through faith alone. That's it. But, it becomes cheap grace when this is what I tell myself every morning and then fail to respond to God's love. If I really am IN him, if I really am his child, if his seed really is in me (1 John 3) then I'll want to live accordingly...

"The mercy and love of God are not meant to make us feel that we can sin and get away with it; they are meant so to break our hearts that we will seek never to sin again" -William Barclay

I want my heart to be broken to my merciful Father so that I don't see his grace as cheap...