OUR SIN KEEPS US HUMBLE

I have never met a born again believer who questioned the authenticity of the salvation experience of Saul of Tarsus.  While the three accounts given by Paul vary, they do not contradict (Acts 9:1-20; 22:1-15; 26:12-18).  In addition to healing the sick and raising the dead, he wrote half of the New Testament!  If any man was save, born again, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, or whatever terminology you want to use, Paul was!  And yet, Paul remained a sinner by practice.  Note the present tense in the following passage of Scripture:

"For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.  For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.  If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.  Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.  For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.  Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.  I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin" (Rom. 7:14-25).

The obvious reason why born again believers still sin, is because God is not finished making us into His Son's likeness.  Here are some passages that indicate believers still sin:
*     Romans 8:28-29 say:  "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren."
*     Philippians 1:6 says:  "Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." 
*     James 5:16 says:  "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."
*     1 John 3:2 says:  "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."

I thank God my salvation does not hang upon my ability to be sinless!