HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 29, 2025 – Just a quick reminder that you cannot be born-again and at the same time be a sinner. To be born-again means to be washed clean of your sins. You can’t be washed clean of your sins and at the same time live in a state of sin, which is what it means to be a sinner. You cannot obstinately, purposely, willfully, unrepentantly, perpetually, and with full and conscious intent choose to live in a state of sin and at the same time have God’s Holy Spirit in you. That would be a spiritual impossibility.

To be born-again means to be washed clean of your sins and to have God’s Holy Spirit in you. When this happens, when God’s Spirit is in you and all around you, you’re no longer a sinner—you can’t be, because sin and God’s Holy Spirit cannot occupy the same spiritual real estate. You’ll still have the capacity to sin while you’re on Earth in a human body, but having the capacity to sin doesn’t make you a sinner: It makes you human.

If people tell you (or worse, insist) that you’re a sinner (which I’ve heard from many a preacher), tell them they’re wrong. Tell them you’re born-again and in right-standing with God. Tell them you cannot be genuinely born-again and at the same time be a sinner. You can be tested and fail (we’ve all, except for Jesus, failed some tests), you can be tempted and fail (we’ve all, except for Jesus, failed some temptations), but these are short-term failures that you put behind you once you repent.

And if you’re genuinely born-again, you don’t delay repenting once God has brought your failure to your attention. You don’t hide from repenting: you crave it. You don’t resent that you have to repent: you embrace it with all your heart and soul. Repenting brings you back into right relationship with God, which is the only place you want to be as a born-again believer. For us, right relationship with God is our spiritual Home.

We born-again believers are not sinners. We do not identify as sinners, and we are not defined by sin. Again, just having the capacity to sin by virtue of still having free will doesn’t mean we’re sinners: It means we’re human.