The little boy looked over at his sister and said, “I have never done anything wrong ever in my life.” The sister asked, “what about that time when you took the cookie out of the cookie jar when mom wasn't looking?” “Oh,” the boy answered, “that wasn't me, that was the product of me.” “What?” asked the sister incredulously. The boy determined boy said, “In my head, if everyone else before me did wrong, and did a sin like the preacher said, then it is their fault that I took that cookie, so that makes me innocent.” “Well that thinking may be in your head,” said the sister, “but when mom gets a hold of you, your bottom is going to think something else.”
The idea of sin is literally “to miss the mark”. The word “sin” comes from an archery term where people would put a target on a tree or a hoop on top of a tree, draw back their arrow in a bow, and shoot. If they miss the target, they “sinned” or “missed the mark.” The question becomes, “Well then, what is the target in a person's life, and how do I know if I have missed it?” Jesus gave us the target as recorded by the apostle Matthew in chapter five verse forty eight:
“Be therefore perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”
If anyone is “perfect”, then he or she has never sinned. However, through the law of God, sin is exposed, and everyone is guilty even if their head says something else.
John the apostle wrote in first John one verse eight:
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Sin, as spoken of by John in this verse, refers to a “sin nature” everyone receives when he or she is born. Have you ever noticed how you have to teach a child not to lie, to share his or her toys, or to be kind? The reason is because the tendency toward “sin” is natural. This sin nature, born within every person, is the reason that Jesus came in the first place. Sin cannot dwell with a holy and perfect God, so something had to be done about that sin. When a people say “we have no sin”, they are deceived, and the very beginning of the process for removing the “sin nature” within them is obstructed. There must be an admission that sin is there before it will be removed.
God wants to have fellowship with everyone in the world, and the first step toward that relationship is to admit that there is a sin nature within. Those who do so will find themselves closer and closer to their Creator who knows every thought and action that anyone has ever had or formed in their head.
Until tomorrow...there is more...
Look for the new devotional book “Equipped for Battle – From Generation to Generation” in all major bookstore sites, www.amazon.com ; www.barnesandnobles.com ; download to e-books, find locally at www.mrzlc.com/bookstore
No comments:
Post a Comment