Sin! What a religious-sounding word! Many hear it and think immediately of hell and damnation. To be told that we have sinned may cause us to react with anger, defiance or rejection. We may become frustrated, disillusioned, discouraged and even depressed, thinking that all is lost. But we all have sinned, and we all still sin today–not, that we should sin, but we do. We should not take sin lightly, but we should not give up in hopelessness and despair when we don’t seem to get rid of sin as quickly as we would want to.
In the Bible, sin describes many facets of human life. Both in the Old and the New Testament, the most common expression for sin conveys the thought of having missed the mark. It does not necessarily refer to deliberate, malicious conduct, but rather to a failure, many times because of neglect, to achieve the desired success. We miss the mark because we may not be diligent enough to try to find it; we may not have enough of God’s help to be successful; or we may not be THAT much interested in succeeding. In the final analysis, we miss the mark because we do not realize that we NEED God’s help to be victorious; that our own will power and strength are NOT sufficient to succeed.
If we neglect to avail ourselves of the help that God is willing to offer us, we WILL fail. Of course, we cannot expect to receive God’s help if we are unwilling to obey Him. The idea that God accepts us “just as we are,” meaning that He does not require of us to obey Him and to overcome sin, is a Satanic deception, which is aimed at diminishing or quenching any zeal or effort on our part to get rid of sin. God tells us that we MUST overcome sin, and with His help, we CAN do so.
In order to become more and more perfect in our efforts to get rid of sin, we basically need to follow three steps: We need to see and acknowledge our sin; we must hate it enough to be willing to get rid of it; and finally, we must take action, because only those who DO God’s commandments will inherit eternal life.
But–for each of these three steps, God’s INVOLVEMENT is NECESSARY. To be able to see and acknowledge sin, God must show it to us. Generally, man is incapable of seeing himself as he really is. Secondly, we can only really hate our sin and obtain a desire to get rid of it, when God gives us such strong feelings and convictions. Man does not really hate sin–but God does. So, we must develop in us the mind of God to be able to think more and more, as God thinks. And finally, in order to take action and overcome sin in our lives, we need to accept God’s help. Man, left alone, is not able to forsake the wrong and do the right, unless he avails himself of God’s strength and USES it in his fight against sin.
God is willing to forgive us all of our sins, when we repent; that is, when we forsake what is wrong and begin to do what is right. However, God does not want us to sin. We are told not to sin. This shows that we CAN get rid of sin. We CAN hit the mark–we don’t HAVE to miss it and to fail. But in order to become victorious, we NEED to have God on our side.
Do YOU keep missing the mark? If you do, cast your burdens on God. Let HIM fight your battles for you–and follow His lead when He does.
