There’s a process Christan’s go through much like basic training or sifting flour. Getting the weeds out of the garden so the vegetables can grow. You are the garden, and the vegetables are the fruit you bear. The less weeds the better your garden will look and bear food. We all have “weeds in our garden” that need to be pulled to make us better Christians and more effective.
To sum it all up, if we are truly Christians and have received Jesus the Holy Spirit will help us pull the weeds out (John 4:16-17). Over time as we walk with Jesus we will want to sin less and less; we will become stronger and stronger so we can resist the temptation to sin that hurts our relationship between us and our Saviour. We feel bad when we sin, the Holy Spirit convicts our conscience, and we feel bad when we grieve him (Ephesians 4:30).
Just like a soldier goes through basic training and has to train and exercise the muscles and the mind for war, so the Christian must be refined and trained for spiritual war. Sin slows us down and weeds choke a garden. We try to be better, but we need God’s help to do it.
It’s not an overnight thing. It takes time to refine.
Can we back this up with some verses?
“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” – Ephesians 4:30
“And I will pray to the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” – John 14:16-17
Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. – Isaiah 48:10