Thought of the Day !!

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No on who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
1 John 3:4-6 (NIV)

To understand this passage better, I think we must first understand just what sin is. People who think sin is robbery, murder, lying, rape and other deeds along these lines are right, but only partially. Sin is much more than breaking one of the Ten Commandments. Sin is the very thing we do or do not do that separates us from God and His love for us.

Lets make sure that we understand that it is what WE do or don't do, and that God never stops loving us. But with the action or thought that is sinful, we push ourselves farther away.

I was reading an excerpt by Hank Hanegraaff this morning that made a lot of since. He says that sin is a barrier between us and God and that just as light and dark cannot coexist together, neither can God (perfection) and sin (imperfection). And this explains why when we sin we are separating ourselves from God.

Now if God's love were not so great and He didn't bring us back to Him through forgiveness, we would be doomed. And this applies to each and every one of us. Paul writes that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

But God does love us so much that He gave His only Son so that we could have another chance at true life...so that we would not be condemned by our own separation...so that we could be brought back into God's loving arms. And Thanks be to God for that.

Remember that you (just like I) have sinned. We have all separated ourselves from God...some more than others. But when we receive Christ in our hearts, and he abides there as Lord of our life, our sinning will decrease. The reason for this is that our heart and Jesus' heart become more like one. And so we go on towards perfection as we live out our lives. Does this mean we never sin again? John says that "no one who lives in him keeps on sinning." But I tend to believe that means willfully. I think John means that when we live in Jesus and he in us, that we will grow in his ways and gradually become more and more like him, which is just opposite of sin.

Allow Christ to truly abide in you and you in him and everything else will work itself out. This is because it will be Christ running the show then and not yourself.

In the love of Christ,
greg