Dear brothers and sisters, friends and readers of this weekly write up, is there any barrier between you and God, your Maker and Creator? Is there one thing that God hates in your personal life and relationship with Him? Ever asked yourself that vital question, per chance? The Bible has the answer for us as missing the mark, disobedience against the expressed will of holy God. The theological, biblical word is sin for the Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The holy God created us as a moral being in His own image and desires that we live and pattern our life after Him.
Sin has long term damaging effects on our life if unchecked as per Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus”. Sin is an act of the will that started with the first man Adam and woman, Eve, an intentional disobedience to God’s instruction, guidance and directives for good life. For us who are living after them, it is an inherited inborn phenomenon in human species that no one necessarily teaches another. A toddler instinctively lies, steals and disobeys for self preservation. However the kind of training received early in life either enhances and encourages sinful habit or disabuses sinful lifestyle in righteousness. That’s why the Bible teaches and instructs parents to teach a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it when he is old (Proverbs 22:6).
Far more important to rescue us from the devastating power and destructive effects of sin however is God’s initiative and unconditional love for humanity: “For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). That’s how God helps us deal with the problem of sin when we open to Him our life confessing and repenting of sin and ask for His loving forgiveness. That’s the purpose for which Jesus Christ came to the world and went to the Cross to die for our sin and change our attitude toward sin. That’s an act of faith, repentance and newness of life that turns our life around and gives us a new life to become children of God.
2 Corinthians 5:17-18 expressly states, “Therefore, If any one is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things have passed away, behold, the new things have come. Now, all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation”.
That’s what it means to be born again and being filled with the Holy Spirit and engaging in a lifestyle that pleases the Lord God.
It is a personal decision and act that no one else can do for another. Everyone of us ought to examine our hearts today if we are still living in sin as a lifestyle or we have genuinely repented embracing the new life in Christ Jesus. John 3:17-18 said, “God did not send His Son to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God”.
I pray with you to make the right decision for yourself to rid sin and its powerful effects out of your life and embrace the new life controlled by the Holy Spirit of God in the name of Jesus.
Blessed day and blessed week ahead in the name of Jesus Christ.