The more I look at where we are in this world, the more I realize how far we have strayed from God. It is not to say that things have never been this bad. In the times of Noah, all but one man had evil in their hearts. In Sodom and Gomorrah, there was so much perversion and violence. So, no, the things we see going on in this world are not new. However, God warns us about these times.

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” – Isaiah 5:20

            The things I see in this world make me wonder how it ever got this bad. In my mind, it all comes down to excuses. We find excuses for every sin we commit. We did it because we were angry, we were hungry, we were upset, we were tired, or because we didn’t see any other way. As hard as it may be for some of you to hear this, there is no excuse for our sins. At least no good excuse. We can try to come up with any and all excuses we want, but none of them are good enough to justify sin.

“Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error…” – Ecclesiastes 5:6

            Let’s take the classic ethical dilemma of a man who stole a piece of bread to feed his starving family. In any ethical class, they would say, “Yes he did commit a crime, BUT he did it for a good reason”. Right? I am sorry to say…no. The 8^th Commandment that God gave us tells us not to steal. It doesn’t say, “don’t steal unless…”. No. Do NOT steal. We can give this hypothetical man the excuse that he did it to save his family. However, desperate situations do not make it ok to sin. In this case, stealing is not the only answer. Jesus, Himself, tells us that just like the birds of the air are taken care of, we shall be taken care of too.

“Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” – Matthews 6:26

            Some may use the excuse that we have a sinful nature to justify the things we do. While it is true that we are born with sinful natures, it does not mean that we cannot keep from sinning. We have been granted the gift of free will. We can choose to sin or not to sin. Just like with Adam and Eve. God gave them the freedom to live in the Garden of Eden. The only rule they had was to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Rather than being content with everything they did have, they chose to sin, fully knowing that it would only bring calamity into their lives. The same goes for us. We can choose to not sin. There is no temptation or trial that we cannot overcome with God on our side.

“No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” – 1 Corinthians 10:13

            We have the choice not to sin when the choice arises. A piece of advice that I remember  Charles Stanley saying in one of his sermons was to not make any big decisions when you are angry, tired, hungry, or upset. When we let our emotions lead us, we run the risk of falling away from God. Instead, we need to come at every situation calmly and fully trusting that God will guide us to make the right choice. There is no excuse for our sin. We do not have to let sin run our lives. We can choose to be like Jesus and not sin.

“For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” – Romans 6:14

            For some of you, this may be hard to hear. I am not saying these things to condemn you or to make you feel inferior. I, myself, have to learn to allow God to guide me and to keep me from falling into sin. As I said, we have a sinful nature, but that does not mean we need to sin. Our God is so good that He can give us the strength, the patience, the guidance, and the peace we need to keep from sinning. When we are born again, we choose to live a life free from sin. It doesn’t mean we won’t ever mess up, but it means that we understand that we can choose not to sin and that when we do, we have a loving and caring God who will forgive us when we truly repent. As Jesus said many times, go forth and sin no more.

“Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.” – 1 John 3:9