Sin!

By Ken Fletcher

“What in the world is sin? Many people who say this is sin or that is sin. Seems like no one wants to expose it for what it is! A thing can be a sin for one person but not necessarily for another person. What’s the deal? The world lies in condemnation. Why? Because of sin!

Our original grandfather, Adam, sinned against God. What was that? It was treason against Father God in the highest order. Adam chose to turn his back on Father and bowed his knee to a new father, Satan! Adam took the authority of the whole earth and handed it over to Satan sealing his fate and our fate. We all were in Adam! Bringing us all down in servitude to a fallen angel. The human race became slaves! How pathetic! A son of God bowing his knee to a puny fallen angel. And, as we, the descendants of Adam, all came along after, we too bowed our knee to satan! All of us!

We all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God. Our spirit came from God originally. We were perfect inside even though our body was death doomed at birth. Babies are spiritually perfect. With no need of redemption. They have not chosen to follow their fallen flesh.

They are not capable of choosing. So, by default they are already Gods own! They have not sinned. They are perfect and one with God. If they were to pass away in that state before they have a right to choose, they automatically will be with God in the Kingdom of heaven.

What if we taught the children the reality of what happened to us in the beginning? The real truth of it! Because, it changes our whole concept of being here on earth! We were far above everything and everyone on earth, but fell below a fallen angel!–Handing him the authority of the earth. Our whole human race took on his death and separation from God! That is what happened.

And, many generations later, here we pop into a fallen world, as the seed of Adam, our blood also contaminated from our fathers, looking at a fallen world, from inside of a fallen body, with fallen partial understanding, observing and actually part of a world filled with everything we see all around us. Then, we realize, our bodies that were created to never die, after a little while, pass away. Many times dying from some nasty disease or sickness. Why is it all happening? Sin!

Why are we separated from God? Sin! Why do we perceive so partially? Sin! On your best day you sin! Oh, you think you have not been sinning Mr/Ms believer? Interesting! Since you are in Christ, did you sin today? Well, dear friend, the purest saint of God is likely to sin today also.

Oh, you say, that is not true! My friend, if you did not sin today in some way or another, that would mean that you are perfect in this life. With no flaws. Never did you embrace a thought that was not right. No selfishness at all in you. No pride. You believed, and thought, and lived perfect all day.

If you did not sin, you lived all day in faith and no doubt! Did you? Well, if you did all that, my hat is off to you! But, if you told me that you did, I probably would not believe you. I would probably simply consider you deceived at best. The only man I know of who did not sin was Jesus. He is the only one! His blood stayed pure because He by-passed Adam’s blood line! The Holy Sprit conceived Him in the virgin Mary’s womb!

No friend. This body we are walking around in is fallen. The mind of the fallen flesh wants to go against God. It’s contrary to the will of God. Even with us having partially renewed minds! Get this right, we all miss it! We all sin. None of us has arrived in this life. But, the truth of the gospel of Jesus is, we can be perfect, even though our body is not perfect.

Even though we do not think right sometimes. Even though we sin. We are not rejected. At any time! Jesus came to save sinners. Are we still sinners after we receive Jesus? Of course not! When we receive Jesus as our Lord, we are made the very righteousness of God in Christ! How could we be sinners if we are seated at the right hand of God with Christ?

No. We are NOT sinners anymore! We should understand that there is therefore NO condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. The flesh is dead because of sin. We (our soul and spirit) are alive in Christ. We are perfect inside! He re-created us that way! In union with Him! How could the perfect One be in union with a sinner? It’s not possible for light to dwell with darkness!

But, here on earth, we are in this atmosphere living in contact with sin all the time through fallen bodies. If we were sinless in this life it would mean we (our renewed soul in union with God) would have total domination over our thoughts, words, and control our actions in our fallen body all the time. Never with a wrong thought. Never with a wrong motive. Never with a wrong deed or word.

The Bible says in the book of James that if we break one commandment of the law, we have broken them all in God’s eyes. This is the truth! Every time we sin, we have broken one of these laws. Therefore, in truth, we have broken them all! Living in the one commandment that Jesus gave us now, the law of love, means that doing this law fulfills all of the commandments.

As far as I know, I have never met anyone in this life who perfectly attained to that EXCEPT for Jesus! Do you? So, how can we be so imperfect and yet perfect to God? Because, of Jesus, the new creation that He has made us IS perfect INSIDE of imperfect bodies! We are vacuum packed inside–sealed with the Holy Spirit. That’s how!

So, what is sin to us now? We know that Jesus said that whatever is not of love is sin! The Bible also says that whatever is NOT of faith is sin! That takes in a whole lot of things in life! That means that if you do anything apart from faith, you have sinned.

I chuckle inside about some people, who are believers, who really believe they don’t sin anymore. Well, if they are truly believers, they don’t sin in their perfect spirits! But, not so out here on the earth! I know some folks real well who believed they did not sin every day, but, at the same time, held grudges against another person for over 10 years! That sounds crazy, does it not? But, that’s what they thought!

Did they belong to God? Yep! Were they ready for heaven? Yep! Were they obviously sinning? Yep! How can you go to heaven when you stay in unforgivness for over 10 years?–Holding something over someone all that time?

Look, friend, it’s all about Jesus and His perfect sinless life. The perfect sinless One, bleeding for us with the pure sinless blood of God! For us, who were God’s enemies! By God’s grace we were saved and delivered from an eternity of torment.

You really think you’re going to heaven because you’ve done so good? You are kidding yourself, dear one! Jesus IS THE ONLY REASON you can be right with God and spend eternity in Heaven with Him! Jesus IS THE ONLY REASON you can be perfect inside! You are NOT a sinner! You ARE in Christ! You cannot be a sinner when you ARE IN CHRIST!

But, you may sin. What happens when we sin? If we practice sin, we put ourselves in the devil’s area. Jesus does not want you to sin. Not because He condemns or looks down on you for it. He does not! Never! No, He simply does not want you to sin because He knows it will hurt you and your family or someone else. That’s it! Jesus is all about your best.

He does not want you to get over in the territory of the devil (the destroyer) where you can get hit! I believe, by His mercy and kindness, He protects us as much as He can even when we are in the devils territory sinning. But, we have a will of our own. If we continue on in it, we can expect to get hit by the demons. Trust me, you do not want to happen!

They are mean hate filled beings! And, they can’t wait for an opportunity to get to you! Yep! You better believe that! So, if we’re dummies, we’ll keep on going, and we’ll find out what that means. Maybe financial. Maybe physical, Maybe family or marriage. Maybe an area you had not thought about.

Demons are always looking for a way in to hit us. But, in reality, we are the ones who, by our own will, give them access to hit us! How? Why? Sin! Disobedience! Not listening to Jesus who leads us into His best! Do you think He condemns you when you sin? He does not! He understands the whole thing inside and out in your case!

If you find yourself in the middle of sin right now, understand, Jesus does not condemn you. The demons may condemn you. Other people may condemn you. You may condemn yourself. But, God never will. Why would God condemn the one (you) who He sent His own Son to die to redeem? He would not! He does not! He will not!

Thank God for Jesus! He already knew you were going to mess things up and miss it BEFORE He received you! And, He wanted you anyway! Sin and all! Yep! You think sin means anything to Jesus anymore? It means nothing to Him. ONLY that it hurts YOU! That’s it!

So, people who run from God when they sin are heading in the wrong direction! Run to Him. He’s not surprised! He wants you to come! He’s smiling with love! He understands it all! And, He accepted you and re-created you with that foreknowledge in mind. He already knew about your whole life before! Did He reject you because of it? Of course not! That’s Jesus!

Sin! It’s real. If we are honest with ourselves, we realize that we sin. We live because of Jesus! We are not condemned with the world because of Jesus! Not because of what we do. It’s all about God’s amazing grace!

We reach to Jesus in the first place because we realize that we are apart from God. We know in our heart that we need a Savior to bring us into right-standing with God. The sin in our spirit, our sin nature, is what the problem was all about! Our nature was wrong because of that first sin of our first grandfather–passed down in our human blood line.

Our fallen nature was in our blood! We followed after it! All have sinned and come short of God’s glory. We were God’s enemies by nature! Satan was our lord! But, when we received Jesus, we received a new nature! God’s nature! We are one with Christ now! Our works do not determine our destination any more! Our faith in Christ does!

Listen friend, as believers, we are supposed to live from the inside out, not from the outside in! As we grow, we learn how to bring out from what is inside to the outside! We don’t live trying not to sin anymore! We live from the inside where Jesus abides! The inside where it is perfect! Inside where all the power and wisdom of God resides! That is the key!

If you and I live from the Spirit of God in our spirit, we unconsciously do not sin. Isn’t it true that sometimes the more you try in the natural, the more you end up sinning! It’s because our focus is wrong! If we’ll focus on who we are on the inside, it will change what happens on the outside. Remember, whatever is NOT of faith is sin! So, if we can do everything in faith, we will not be sinning!

Now, there are some believers who will look at other believers and be convinced that they are sinning. But, are they really? Do you really know if they are or not? Maybe we have drawn the wrong conclusion about them. Well, I think there are some things that are pretty obvious that really are sins. But, other things, that some people think is not okay with God, may or may not really be.

Since God does not condemn us it is really between us and God. Because, who made you or I the judge of an other person’s sin? Well, you can do that if you want. I’m not going to! Because, I’ve got too much work to do on me to be trying to figure out what someone else should do or not do.

All I know is this, God looks on our heart. He knows the true about us. Nobody else does! You hear me? Nobody else! You stand in front of God for you! No one else! When you stand before God then, will it be the same as when you stand in front of Him now? Because you are! Now!

Sin is a subject that so many look at in so many different ways. You can try to live by a Christian creed and dogma and still be in sin. It could be your attitude. It could be a selfish motive. It could be a lot of things. But, if we are living from the inside, we will be living from a place of perfection in Christ. If and when we do, we will not be sinning. Because we are living in love and in faith!

Have I arrived? Now, that’s a funny one! Mercy sakes no! I’ve got a long, long way to go! But, I’ll tell you, if you can get yourself away from the religious concepts of sin, which includes condemnation, you may start to see things in reality.

Am I giving people a license to sin as some would say? Nope! Some how or another, people are going to find a way to sin–license or no license! You’ve got to realize, people are gonna do what they want! But, sincere and honest believers who are trying to live sin free might get frustrated. And, eventually give up.

Well, if a believer can perceive what is really going on, he or she will realize, it’s all good with God. He understands what you are dealing with completely. Now, He wants to deliver you out of those things that have bound you. That is one big deal with sin. It binds. Do you understand?

If you are in the devil’s territory, and you just hang around, you are going to be hit by him in some way. Wise up! Jesus will bring you out! Is He condemning you while you are there in devil town? No. But the devils will. And, other people will. And, you will probably be condemning yourself even more!

Jesus just wants to help you up and out of it. He IS after your best! He wants you free and blessed! We deal with sin here in this life. We swim around in it in this fallen atmosphere every day. It’s a Godless world for the most part. Sin is everywhere.

I am often asked what it is like to live in sin city (Las Vegas)? I often say it’s just like living in LA, or Seattle, or Nashville, or Chicago or your town. They’re all sin cities! All across the nation and world! You don’t see it? Oh, my friend, it’s true! Maybe it’s just not as out in the open as it is here in Vegas. But, it’s there!

The bottom line is, sin should not have dominion over us believers in Christ! We are free from sin! Jesus has set us free. But, if you do sin, you should look to get out of it ASAP. God is greater than your sin. In His eyes, you are forgiven. In your eyes and others eyes, you may feel condemned. Whatever it is, you can have victory over it.

You know, even if you can’t seem to break free for some reason. God, sees your heart. He wants to help you to realize victory. But, He is not going to put you down for missing it and messing up. He will patiently pick you up and brush you off, and you start off again fresh together. That is our loving heavenly Father!

So, you can see, how God looks at sin and how we look at sin many times are 2 different things! The problem that most of humanity has is they think God is mad at them for what they are doing or have done. So, they think He is against them. No! He’s not! He is against sin! The sin that hurts US! THAT is what He hates! The Sin! Because He knows so well how it hurts us!

He loves us, and hates the sin that hurts us! A simple truth that is so vital to understand. Jesus is positive in every way for every human! Do you know Him? He is the only One with the power to redeem us! If you will allow Him, He will bring you out of the bondage of sin!” KF KenFletcher.org