Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others – ignoring God! – harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
Galatians 6:7-8 The Message (MSG)
We reap what we sow.
Whoever sins is a slave to sin.
John 8:34
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Romans 3:23
SIN:
- When we separate from God and others through our words and actions.
- When we say and do the opposite of what God would have us say and do
- When we settle for less than God’s best.
What must we sow in order to reap freedom?
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23 (NIV)
Realize our need for a Savior!
Confession – to admit we’ve sinned
Repentance – to go in a new direction
We Can’t Ignore Sin
We can’t realize freedom without confession, without the realization that we are a sinner in need of a savior, that we can’t save ourselves or one another.
Now this outward concern/inward denial dynamic is not okay. Blindness to your own sin is a denial of the presence of personal spiritual need. Such a denial always leads to a devaluing of and a resistance to God’s grace. Denying your need for grace and underestimating the power of what that grace can do never, ever leads to anything good.
The admission of sin doesn’t lead you somewhere dark and depressing, because you know you’ve been given grace that is greater than your sin, and your celebration of grace is real and heartfelt because it’s done in the context of your confession of the very sin that grace addresses. Confession of sin without the celebration of grace leads to guilt, self-loathing, timidity, and spiritual paralysis.
Embracing grace without the admission of sin leads to confident theological “always rightism,” but does not result in change in your heart and life. So today, refuse to minimize sins, reject the temptation to devalue grace, and run to Jesus weeping and celebrating at the same time.
Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies, October 2.