BY RONALD OUMA
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jer 17:9
Jesus did not fear to call sin by it’s right name. Down through the ages, Pharisees and their like had wanted to define sin as only as transgression of the law, only as an action But Jesus puts an end to such definitions for Christians. Sin is first inward then outward.
The inward aspect of sin is many things. First, it’s the power that enslaves people. That is clear from Romans 6:16 where Paul’s says that sins practitioners are actually its slaves.
The Revised standard version translation of Romans 3:9 catches that idea when it says that people “are under the power of sin”. Outward sins are nothing but the symptoms of a disease called sin. Yet its not the symptoms that matter but the disease.
Second, sin is subtle. It deludes and fools us, suggesting the idea to our hearts that we really are not so bad if we just avoid sinful acts. Many highly respected men and women who would never commit adultery on an adulterous or less than pure mental life.Many of these are the devotees of soap operas, the divorce columns of the newspapers or stimulating visual or print forms of eroticism. Many are vicarious adulterers.
Third, sin has a perverting effect on human nature. Thus God’s good gift of sex and the other appetites are twisted from their lawful uses. As a result, excellent and precious gifts are put on wrong uses.Jesus came to free us from the enslaving, subtle and perverting effect of sin. The gospel of His grace is to give us the power to set us free from the power of sin.
God wants to help me today. He wants to help you today. Today is the day of our salvation. Let’s invite him into our hearts and lives right now so that we might this day have a closer walk with Him.
A closer walk with Him will also mean a closer walk with our husband, wife, parents, children and so on. Getting healed with God means getting healed with His other Children. You can’t have one without the other.
Jesus loves us that is why He died for us. Why not ask Him to create in us a clean heart ( Psalms 51:10) so that we may have a closer walk with Him.