Sin isn’t a popular word. Most people think of sin as doing something really bad, like murder, assault, or robbery. But the word “sin” has the idea of missing the mark, not hitting the target.
The idea is that God has set a glorious standard and when we fail to live by it, we sin. We say, do, and think things that are contrary to God's standard, and the problem is that no matter how much we try and achieve change by ourselves, we just can't succeed.
The Bible teaches that our nature is imprisoned to sin. We miss the mark because we choose creation over the Creator. We look to succeed by our own strength, yet we never shake our own selfish sin. No matter what our education, religious heritage, ethnicity, or financial status, we cannot overcome the power of sin by ourselves. This is a problem.
It’s true that the Bible is filled with thou shalts and thou shalt nots, which serve as a sort of preventative checkup. But it’s also a book of “hints” rather than commands, kind of like when our mothers tell us when us when we have a cold to get plenty of rest and to eat your chicken noodle soup.
Just beneath the soft, newborn skin of this beautiful story is the flesh and bone of a theological truth that is older than creation: God planned to send a Saviour long before time began.
Questions about God and His Word are natural. When questions come, we shouldn’t be afraid to ask them in honest humility.
Contentment comes through choices we make. The Apostle Paul said he had learned how to be content (Philippians 4:11–13). Following Paul’s teaching and example can help us learn how to be content.
Sports were my obsession. I immersed myself in statistics and scoreboards and would sooner worship at the shrine of sport than anyplace else.
Living in a material world, and especially in capitalistic North America, the pressure to be caught up in materialism is enormous.
Those who flex with the times, who refuse to stay rigid, who resist the mould and reject the rut…ah, those are the souls distinctively used by God.
But this heaven-bound path we’re on is also a warpath. We are engaged in a fight every single day of our lives. It’s a fight about truth, trusting God, and believing His Word. It’s a fight against lies and deception.
For me the documentary was a sobering reminder that sometimes our best intentions and even the plain truth can’t convince people to change. All we can hope in is the transformative power of God.
The doctrine of the virgin birth, or perhaps more accurately the virgin conception, is important for many reasons. On it hang the doctrines of original sin, the inspiration of Scripture, who Jesus was, and what Jesus did in salvation.
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