Ephesians 5:10-12

And try to learn [in your experience] what is pleasing to the Lord [let your lives be constant proofs of what is most acceptable to Him]. Take no part in and have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead [let your lives be so in contrast as to] expose and reprove and convict them. For it is a shame even to speak of or mention the things that [such people] practice in secret. Ephesians 5:10-12

When Jesus was here 200 years ago He ate with notable sinners. He had a prostitute wash His feet with perfume that cost a whole years wages. One of Jesus’ disciples was a tax collector who was hated by society. Jesus always seemed to be hanging out with those who the church would call sinners. He did it so much that He was called a heavy drinker and a glutton by the religious leaders of His day. 

The Son of Man came eating and drinking [with others], and they say, Behold, a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of tax collectors and [especially wicked] sinners! Yet wisdom is justified and vindicated by what she does (her deeds) and by her children. Matthew 11:19

What was pleasing to Jesus though was to serve the lost. He went to where they were and He always had compassion on them in spite of themselves. It is very easy to get caught up in the thinking that says I am doing right and you are doing wrong, but that isn’t what pleases Jesus. Our contrast is to bless those who curse us and to feed our enemies. Our contrast is that we never look to ourselves for the power to do good, we look to Him Who us greater within us. 

The Truth is that we can never stop doing anything on our own. We have to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to stop. This Truth is why we can have compassion on those who come against us. 

As long as we believe that we must stop sining on our own, we will continue to do that which we don’t want to do. It is only when Grace allows us to see the Truth that it has to be Jesus in us, that we will finally truly repent and change for the better. So we learn by being taught by the Holy Spirit. We do not teach ourselves. 

Therefore, since we are now justified (acquitted, made righteous, and brought into right relationship with God) by Christ's blood, how much more [certain is it that] we shall be saved by Him from the indignation and wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, it is much more [certain], now that we are reconciled, that we shall be saved (daily delivered from sin's dominion) through His [resurrection] life. Not only so, but we also rejoice and exultingly glory in God [in His love and perfection] through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have now received and enjoy [our] reconciliation. Romans 5:9-11

But now since you have been set free from sin and have become the slaves of God, you have your present reward in holiness and its end is eternal life. For the wages which sin pays is death, but the [bountiful] free gift of God is eternal life through (in union with) Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:22-23