Thursday August 04, 2017

 

No matter how hard we try to deny it or how many excuses we make, the fact is that we are all sinners and we just cannot help ourselves. All of us have done things that we knew were wrong. What is worse is that we made promises to change in some areas and while we may have, in other areas we eventually fell right back into our old sinful ways. Many others actually believe that they can behave their way out of sin but that is simply impossible. The reason why it is impossible is because behaving badly does not make us sinners, it is quite the opposite. We behave badly because we are sinners. You may not be aware of this but all of us are born infected with sin. Notice how infants behave badly without ever having to learn how to behave that way, it comes naturally to them. As a matter of fact, the word that children will hear the most during their first months of development is the word “no”.  All of us are born sinners and no amount of training, discipline, or religion is going to change this. We are not in need of second or third chances and we don’t need help, what we need is for someone to save us from ourselves.

 

For about 1500 years, the way the Jewish people dealt with sin was through a Godly ordained sacrifice of an animal to atone for their sins. After God had liberated Israel from their captivity in Egypt, Moses having spent three weeks on Mount Sinai returned with the law God had given him also as a means to deal with sin. Whenever an Israelite committed a sin, they were required to sacrifice an unblemished animal and the animal’s blood served to cover their sin. This was a reminder of the price of their sin and of their need to be forgiven. However, the animal’s blood would never be enough because it did not have the same value as human blood did. For this reason, the Israelites were always sacrificing animals; they had to do so each time they sinned. The problem was that there was no human with unblemished blood available to atone for the people’s sin, which is why I stated earlier, everyone, is infected by sin. That is until some two thousand years ago when God sent His son Jesus into the world via divine conception. He did not have blood that was infected by sin instead he had the divine nature of our Heavenly Father. When John the Baptist saw him he exclaimed:

 

“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

– John 1:29 NIV

 

Two thousand years ago, God sent the world not what they most wanted, instead he most definitely sent us what we needed the most, a Savior. John the Baptist called this Savior the “Lamb of God”, the one who takes the sins of the world away; not for a few but for the world for the sins of everyone and anyone that accepts the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.