“For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God…”
The Bible is plain and simple about one thing: “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” The Bible also declares that there is no one who can say that he or she is good in every sense of the word. Jesus even told the rich young man not to call Him good. If anyone could have been called “good” on this earth, Jesus could have been. I think that Jesus reprimanded the young man because He did not want anyone to use that word “good” loosely. We should all strive to be good people, but when we think that we have reached a satisfying level of goodness, we are only fooling ourselves. We can really become complacent in our “goodness.” So we all need to realize that we “have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” There are different ways that we try to excuse our sinful behavior, and that is what this article is about. There are what I will call “excusers.” These people know that what they do is wrong, but they excuse it on the basis of the reasons for their situations. Their common excuse is that their parents are to blame. If their parents had been better role models, they would not have given in to certain sins. Another excuse is that other people prodded them to do wrong. This reminds me of Adam and Eve after they sinned. When confronted with his sin Adam said “It was the woman’s fault. She gave me the fruit and I ate it.” Eve, in turn, blamed the serpent. What both of them said was true, Eve did give Adam the fruit, but she didn’t make him chew it and swallow it. The serpent did beguile Eve, but he did not pluck the fruit and put it in her mouth. They stood without excuse. There are other things that provoke excuses, but these two illustrate the point for us that we should not make excuses for our sins. There are what I will call the “deniers.” These people deny that there is such a thing as sin. Anything that we do is alright, because there is no God to Whom we will have to answer. There are some things that they see as wrong, like mistreating other people, but that is not called sin. To the “deniers” we don’t have to answer to a higher power for anything that we do. I guess that these are the people who say that anything goes as long as we don’t feel bad about it. Whole industries are built around that supposition. “Deniers” do not believe that the Bible has any authority in the lives of people and that we can just ignore it. There are what I will call “self-righteous sinners.” In the sense of living moral lives, these people are straight as an arrow. Their problem is that they have a shallow view of sin. They think because they don’t swear, lie, drink alcoholic beverages, smoke, chew, dip, etc. they are not sinners. There is one sin that these people overlook, and that is the sin of pride. The Bible does not go easy on pride. There are a lot of references to the sinfulness of pride, but I will use one to illustrate the point. Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” The elder brother in what we call the “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” is a good example. He took great pride in the fact that he had not wandered off into the “far country” as his brother had, but in his pride he could not rejoice in the fact that the younger son had come home. He refused to go to the party because his pride had been hurt. We who are involved in church really need to heed this lesson. Finally, there is what we will call “the truly repentant.” These people are truly sorry for their sins, and they seek the forgiveness of God regardless of the causes of their sins. They don’t make excuses, deny, or look down on other people, but they go to God for forgiveness and get forgiven for their sins. It is just a simple matter of forgetting our pride, confessing that we have sinned, and getting God’s forgiveness. Let this last person be characteristic of us. Bro. Joe
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
|