Sin

God so loved the world that He sent His Son. Jesus, fully-God and fully-man, died on the cross as the penalty for our sin. When we trust in the Son, the Father accredits Christ’s righteousness to us and declares us “not guilty.” God the Spirit takes up residence in us and enables us to live a life that pleases God.

Our spiritual flight has many ups and downs. The wind currents of life lift us up and drag us down. The atmosphere of sin causes us to stumble and fall. We grow weary from the journey and start a dangerous descent. But God is there every time. Like a mother eagle, he carries us on his all-powerful wings.

The penalty of sin is death, a penalty that Jesus took on himself. “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7b). Because of Jesus, eternal death passes over us, and we pass over from physical death to eternal life.

Don’t run from him; run to him! God promises that if we confess our sins, he “is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). It’s time to come out of the darkness into the wonderful light of God’s grace.

Just as poison at the beginning of a stream contaminates the entire stream, so sin at the beginning of the human race contaminates us all. “All have sinned,” and that sin separates us from God. Actually God did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He sent his Son to pay sin’s penalty by his death on the cross.

Jesus always provides another chance. God has not written you off. He has not cast you aside. Your failure is not final. While you must acknowledge and repent of your sin, Jesus waits with open arms to welcome you back, reinstate you, and use you.

Jesus’ question to the Father was a deep cry of His unfathomable love for us.  Even when He felt forsaken by the Father, even when He didn’t know how much longer He could hold on, even when the pain was unimaginable, Jesus never gave up. He never gave in. Jesus paid for sin in its deepest and fullest penalty for you and me.

The work of Jesus on the cross was applied to this condemned man. All his sin was laid on Jesus, and he passed from death to life. Such is the power of grace. Such is the fullness of forgiveness.

Too many people use the guilt and shame of sin as a barrier between themselves and God. Many believe they must clean up their acts before God will accept them. The problem with that thinking is this: no one can clean up their life on their own. Only Jesus can do that. Lay your sin—the sin He died for—before Him and let His forgiveness wash over your heart.