Sin In Our Lives

“How do I go to God?" someone asked the Scottish Presbyterian Pastor, Horatius Bonar. He replied, "It is with our sins that we go to God, for we have nothing else that we can truly call our own."

1. IT IS SIN to entirely focus our minds upon the world's wisdom, rather than upon God's true wisdom, which is only found in God's law-word (All the Bible is God's law-word). His wisdom preserves us. It causes us to fear Him and desire to obey Him. When teenagers crawl into the back seat and have sex, they are disregarding God's law-word, which would preserve them if only they feared God and had hearts that wanted to obey Him. When we disregard God's law-word we suffer the consequences. Sinful relationships, immodest dressing, gluttony, setting our eyes and hearts upon worthless things, neglecting to love and spend time in God's word, are just a few examples of how we reject God's wisdom. And then we wonder why we are deprived of God's blessings and His ultimate happiness. 

2. IT IS SIN to always watch out for our own interests, looking to get "a deal," at the expense of someone else. Recently I was standing in line behind a woman at a Crate & Barrel kitchen store in Atlanta. The woman in front of me had purchased a dozen glasses from the store only minutes earlier. On the way to the parking lot the shopping bag slipped out of her hand and crashed onto the concrete, shattering the glasses. She argued with the manager that the store should give her new glasses at no additional cost. The store manager gave them to her. She didn't even use a gun to get what belonged to someone else. God's word is plain. We are not to steal.  It's that plain.

The eighth commandment requires obtaining things lawfully. "Provide things honest in the sight of all men" (Proverbs 27:23). "Look not every man on his own things, but every man on the things of others" (Philippians 2:4). The eighth commandment also forbids us to unjustly hinder our own or our neighbor's wealth, which was, in this case, the Crate and Barrel store.

Again, God's law-word preserves us when we fear and obey Him.

It is true of all of us that we are full of sin, and our hearts are completely rebellious, until God by His grace, changes us. Seeing, hearing, walking and feeling, are God's precious gifts to each of us. Being able to understand and exercise our wills is also a valuable gift.

There is in each of us, no look of our eyes, no motion of our senses, no thoughts of our minds, that is not mingled with sin. 

 As you already know, original sin was transmitted from Adam to his posterity. "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners" (Romans 5:19). That means sin was passed on to you and me! It also means that OUR WHOLE NATURE IS CORRUPT!

Scripture says there is no good in us. "As it is written, None is righteous, just and truthful and upright and conscientious, no, not one" (Romans 3:10 AMP). "They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy; there is none that does good or right, no, not one." (Psalm 14:3 AMP).

Our "depravity" our "corruption" is TOTAL.  It is also INWARD, inside of us! It is deep-down in our nature. God can see it, even if we or our friends don't. Our sinful depraved corruption, also referred to in scripture as wickedness, is also GREAT. It may not appear so to us, but the Bible says it appears that way to God. "For out of the heart come evil thoughts (reasonings and disputings and designs) such as murder, adultery, sexual vice, theft, false witnessing, slander and irreverent speech"(Matthew 15:19 AMP).

Our wickedness if also CONTINUAL and UNIVERSAL. It is continual in that it goes on all the time. That's because our hearts are wicked. "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination and intention of all human thinking was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5 AMP).

It is universal in that there is no one who is not evil by nature. There is not even one thought in our hearts that is not wicked. "For no temptation - no trial regarded as enticing to sin [no matter how it comes or where it leads] - has overtaken you and laid hold on you that is not common to man - that is, no temptation or trial has come to you that is beyond human resistance and that is not adjusted and adapted and belonging to human experience, and such as man can bear. But God is faithful [to His Word and to His compassionate nature], and He [can be trusted] not to let you be tempted and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of resistance and power to endure, but with the temptation he will [always] also provide the way out - the means of escape to a landing place - that you may be capable and strong and powerful patiently to bear up under it" (I Corinthians 10:13 AMP).

It is important to understand what TOTAL means, when we talk about depravity, about wickedness. We are totally corrupt in extent, but perhaps not in degree. That is, the wickedness in us affects every part of our being. We are corrupt in every extent; however we may not be completely corrupt to the fullest degree. The evil in us has not gone as far as it could go. We may not be as bad as bad can be simply because of time and opportunity. If we had more time and opportunity we would be worse! The passing of time allows the deadly germs of wickedness to multiply and increase in us.  

When we became Christians, Christ gave us a new nature, a Christ-like nature that desires good. That means that the only goodness in us is imputed, not imparted to us. Imputed means that the righteousness of Christ is charged to our account. We get to use it and have the benefit of it; however our evil nature is still within us. That's why we are so given to sin. That's why we don't first think of God and His law, but our own sinful wants and desires. If the Christ-nature were imparted to us, it would become ours through and through and we would have no sin. Righteousness, in that case would be ours by nature, which it is not.

We can say that as long as any human being is left to his or her own nature, she or he are always inclined to evil more and more. This is not because we are forced to be that way. It is because we freely prefer it. We would rather look to our own interest and take unfair advantage of other people than we would to fear God and loving our fellow man. AND THAT'S THE PROBLEM! 

When we want to do good, evil is present within us. Paul says, "I do not practice or accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I loathe [which my moral instinct condemns]. . .For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot perform it. - I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out; For I fail to practice the good deeds I desire to do, but the evil deeds that I do not desire to do are what I am [ever] doing" (Romans 7:15,18 AMP).

God's judgment's upon us does not cure our basic nature, because our depravity is always there. We are always about doing evil, sinning and sinning some more. We no sooner get out of one sin till we are right back into another.

"O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death? O thank God! - He will! through Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, our Lord! So then indeed I of myself with the mind and heart serve the Law of God, with with the flesh the law of sin" (Romans 7:24,25 AMP).

For further study, go to Romans 7 and 8.