I heard a preacher one time say, “If you say you can’t even go one day without sin, that’s a sad state of affairs”. Of course, my first thought was, “I guess by that standard I am in a sad state of affairs”. Am I saying it’s impossible to go 24 hours without sin? Am I saying that I’ve never gone a single day without sin? Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but… yeah, that’s what I’m saying.
Of course, perhaps I misunderstand what sin is… I might be using the wrong definition. Actually, just trying to define sin is tricky, if you really try and dig into it. Sin is certainly breaking the Ten Commandments, but it’s also so much more, as James tells us.
Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it. (James 4:17)
Okay, now let’s see how that 24-hour rule is holding up… How often does this happen?
I am not proud to say this, but I am not sure I could point to a single day in my adult life that I can definitively say I completed without sin. In fact, if someone tells me they can and often do go a day without sin, my response would be: You are lying to yourself, or I’m deeply impressed and an even more horrible person than I thought I was.
This is what makes it so remarkable that we have a Savior who not only went 24 hours without sin, or a month, or even a year. Jesus lived his 30+ years in this sinful world and successfully completed the impossible!
And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. (1 John 3:5)
This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. (Hebrews 4:15)
#LoveMatters