“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 one who continues to sin has either seen him
or known him.” 1 John 3:4-6 (NIV)
As believers in Christ we shouldn’t entertain sin as a
regular course of action. Sin is the
deliberate disobedience of religious or moral law. According to the Apostle John it’s
lawlessness, which is quite specifically the
disobedience to God’s Moral Law. An
occasional sin, while not excused, is certainly a possibility. Quite frankly, it’s a probability. A Christian receives conviction from the
indwelt Holy Spirit and changes his course, thus averting negative
consequences. Those that do not shall most
assuredly reap the consequences of their transgression(s).
John depicts the person who keeps on sinning as one
who doesn’t know God. So many people
claim to know God or Jesus, yet their lives reveal just the opposite. To know the Lord is to love Him and to love
Him is to walk in righteousness, not get away with whatever you think you
can. Knowingly sinning with the mindset
that you can always ask to be forgiven makes a joke of God’s grace.
If you say you’re ‘religious’, what does that mean to
you? Does it mean you strive to be more
like the Christ of the Bible in thought, word and deed or does it mean that you
warm a pew every Sunday morning and even drop a few dollars in the collection
plate? What we need to keep from practicing
sin again as a way of life is to enter into a personal relationship with the
Lord, not become ‘religious’. Until next
time, walk with the King and be a blessing!
Dictionary
used: American Heritage®
Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2011 by Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Company.
Reference
used: Reformation Study Bible,
P & R Publishing Company, Copyright 2008.
