“Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Ps 51:5 NIV) 

 “There is none righteous, no, not one…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:10,23) 

 This is God’s assessment of all of humanity, not mine. We all stood condemned and death and judgment was already on us. (John 3:36 Rom 5:12) 

 Sin was the problem. 

 And God had the solution. 

 Where we get things confused and mixed up, is understanding how that ‘solution’ actually works. One might conclude today that many church members believe that earplugs are the solution to a noisy muffler when it comes to ‘fixing sin’. 

 Consider this: A young adult gets into some credit card trouble racking up an amount of debt they are being buried under and unable to pay back. Broken and desperate, they humbly call home for help. And Dad/Mom show mercy, write a check and pay off the debt with the hope their child has learned a lesson. 

 O Happy Day! 

 But now, instead of ridding themselves of the credit card, they continue to ring up debt, but just not as much as before. And for some odd reason, they just start having the bill mailed to their parent’s home. Granted, the monthly debt occurred is significantly lower than the bill originally brought to dear ole Mom and Dad, but still…there has been some apparent misunderstanding. 

 Welcome to Modern Day Grace theology. 

The idea when they were set free of debt, was to “go…and charge no more…lest you get into worse trouble”. (John 5:14). But they mistakenly took that and heard: “go…and try not to charge as much, maybe spend less and do better with your finances.” 

 Can we talk about ‘sin’ today? As in, what it ‘is’ and what it ‘isn’t’? 

 And why do we seem to become easily ensnared and held captive by something that Jesus said He set us free of? (John 8:34-36) 

While I’m offering up more scripture here, what I would really like to know is why these next two verses just flat out anger people, rile them up and often times create an ugly response or reaction in them? I mean, it’s just two verses out of our bible and it reads: “Whoever abides in Him does not sin…Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he bas been born of God.” (1 John 3:6,9) 

 How about instead of getting mad at the Word, maybe we just kind of step back and take another look at it again…examine it and then come to our own conclusions. 

 And we can start with defining ‘sin’. Some of you might respond with the old standby: ‘sin is missing the mark’. Yes, I understand the concept but that is kind of generic and doesn’t really help anyone. Especially when we can go directly to the bible itself and read clearly that ‘Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.” ( 1 John 3:4) 

 Sin is, in effect, breaking the law. i.e. – not keeping His commands. 

 This is problematic and should catch our attention in a serious way, because a very ‘active and apparent believer’ was not allowed into heaven because, in spite of all his religious activity, he was told by God that he continued to ‘practice lawlessness’ and denied entry. (Matt 7:23) You might also examine closely Matt. 13:41. 

 And to add insult to injury, he was also confronted with this sobering statement by God: “I Never Knew You!” 

 So let’s redirect back to 1 John 2:3-5: “Now by this we know that we know Him, IF we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.” Funny, is it not, how the question we always have been trained to ask others is: “Do you know Jesus?” Where as the question we might want to ask ourselves is: “Are we known by Him?” 

 Especially when we read where Jesus made the following statement: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” (John 10:27) Then in turn, He asked this to another group: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, and not do the things I tell you?” (Luke 6:46) 

 So when we as ‘believers’ openly admit without hesitation that we ‘sin all the time’ or daily, if not multiple times a day’, the first question to be asked is: “Why?” Why do you sin daily. Who is your Master? 

 Jesus said whoever commits sin is a slave to sin and we know a slave does not abide in the house forever but a son abides forever.” (John 8:35) I do believe it was Jesus who said we cannot ‘serve two masters because we’ll love the one and hate the other.” (Matt 6:24) 

 But more on that later. The second question I would pose is more of a rhetorical one in that if asked to give an example of how you might ‘sin daily’ or ‘all the time’, what might you say? 

 If we don’t have a clear-cut understanding of the definition of what sin actually is, then we open ourselves to all kinds of groundless accusations by the enemy and undeserved condemnation. For example, people assume that because they ‘have bad thoughts’ that they have ‘sinned’. 

 So let’s look at this a second. We all agree that Jesus was sinless and perfect, yes? Guess what? He had ‘bad thoughts’. 

 Yep…He sure did. Guess who brought them to him? Satan did … just like Satan does to us. 

 You ask ‘how do I know?’ Easy. Hebrews 4:15 says that He “was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Same book but 2:18 says ‘He himself suffered, being tempted.” 

 You don’t think Satan tempted Him with images with those women who traveled close with Him? 

 Do you ever have tempting thoughts like that? Jesus was tempted in EVERY way you and I are tempted. 

 So regarding our thought life and how to deal with those ‘bad thoughts’… I heard years ago someone make this profoundly true statement that I believe can be supported by scripture. They said: “You can’t keep the birds from flying overhead, but you sure can keep them from building a nest in your head.” 

 2 Cor. 10:3-5 gives insight to this ‘spiritual war’ we are engaged in and the need to ‘bring in to captivity Every thought to the obedience of Christ’. Satan (powers of darkness) are the ones who tempt and suggest and lure us by enticing us and it usually begins with a seed or thought. 

 It’s what we do with that thought (and the enemy is watching our response) that determines whether maybe we have an unwelcome ‘guest’ residing in our hearts who may be ‘ordering take-out’ for those thoughts which we in turn welcome and invite in. (Sort of a ‘Devil-Door-Dash’ maybe?) 

 And that unwelcome ‘guest’ can be quickly and easily ‘removed’ but first it might be a good if we understand how he got there to begin with. 

 When we receive a seed/thought that is not of God, we have an immediate ‘moment of grace’ where we can resist the devil and he has to flee. (James 4:7) But if we don’t exercise that power in that moment, we in turn invite and welcome that thought in which then takes root and finds its way into our heart. 

 By the way, do you know where Jesus said the sin of adultery takes place in? (Matt 5:28) 

 Now Paul’s instruction to ‘give no place to the devil’ in Eph. 4:27 makes more sense. The enemy knows where he is welcomed and you need not invite him twice. Matt 12:43-45 should be helpful for study as well. 

 Too much material to address here in one posting so I hope you come back tomorrow. But keep this in mind: If an exterminator comes to remove ‘varmints’ out of your house, and he sees missing doors and broken windows, he may point that out to you before he rids you of the ‘pests’. 

 Because unless you are willing to shut some doors and fix some windows, it is an exercise in futility. Col. 3:2- “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.”