I want to spend the next four days explaining very clearly what someone needs to do to be born again. I don’t intend to oversimplify, but only to be very clear. Everything we’ve discussed so far in our 31 Days of Promise and Hope devotional series has been for the purpose of focusing toward salvation. Today, we’ll define sin.
Before we can understand sin’s effect, we must understand its definition. Sometimes people define sin as doing anything that displeases God. While this is true, I believe it is a little simplistic. So, I want to go a little further for you. Sin is “any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature.”[i] Let’s take a deeper look at each of those areas.
We are sinners by doing
God’s laws are given to us in Scripture to set the standard for our activities. When we disobey God’s laws, we sin.
We are sinners by thinking
Our attitudes are another source of our sin. Basically, our attitudes are how we think about certain situations.
We are all sinners by inheritance
As people, we have an inherited sin nature. Just as children inherit certain personality traits from their parents, we also inherit sin from Adam. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). This inherited sin is often referred to as our sin nature.
Sin is a real problem and the only answer to that problem is God’s provision for reconciliation through Christ. Tomorrow, we will discover when sin entered humanity, the extent of the problem of sin, and the need for Christ.