As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins… (Ephesians 2:1, NIV)
Whether or not it’s fact, you’ve heard the pirates’ mantra: Dead men tell no tales.
But what if, dear friend in Christ, they do?
As one who has been saved, you carry with you a testimony. It is your story not only of how God has changed you, but of how he resurrected you, a person dead in sin, to life abundant and eternal.
Whereas eternity with Jesus is a place with “no more death or mourning or crying or pain,” sin unmet results in eternity without these promises.We don’t really need the details of all the bad you did before Jesus came and brought you this life. That would be like a disgruntled golfer telling you about all his missed three-footers and virtually nothing about his good shots. Oh, but golfers do that, don’t they? And often believers do, too. They think the compelling part of their story is the pre-Jesus stuff, so they spend lots of time on the build-up.
Maybe there is a reason for this, and that reason speaks to our old nature, too. Here it is: Before Jesus, we were the star of the story. We may have been stupid and wicked and self-focused, but we were in charge, creating our own glory, as it were. So we tell this part of the story with a special relish that says in so many unspoken words, “Look at what I did.”
Sin is serious enough to deserve attention. In Scripture, we read that sin is:
– The agent that deceives us and kills us off (Romans 7:11)
– The catalyst to do what is wrong (Romans 7:8)
– The work of the flesh in disobedience to God (Galatians 5:19-21)
– An enslaving master (Romans 6:6 & 14)
– The thing Jesus became for us, though he knew no sin himself (2 Corinthians 5:21)
– Something we all have done, with mortal consequence (Romans 3:23, 6:23)
You cannot read these passages and brush away sin. Its hold is too fierce, its effect too grave if untreated. There are those who say when the critical diagnosis comes, “I will live with this disease until I die. You may have a cure, Doctor, but I have no interest in changing the way I live.” I once officiated a funeral for a woman who took such a course; her family was furious, for they found out only the morning of her service that she could have sought a remedy and likely beat the illness.
Sin unmet will lead to something far more lasting: the second death. This is eternity apart from Christ. Whereas eternity with Jesus is a place with “no more death or mourning or crying or pain,” sin unmet results in eternity without these promises.
This is why sin should never be more than the small preface to the real story of our lives. It is a story we will explore more tomorrow, when our Savior enters the timeline and twists the plot for good.
—
Jeff Hopper
July 9, 2018
Copyright 2018 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.