The question for every professing Christian is very simple, yet profound:
What are you going to do about sin?
Sin is not a minor issue in the Christian life. It is the issue. It was sin that cost Jesus His life. It is the reason He willingly went to the cross as your substitute, suffered under the wrath of God, shed His blood, and died in your place.
Sin is what separated humanity from God in the Garden of Eden and it is still the great barrier between a holy God and sinful people today. It is the reason for His wrath- the powerful and just anger of a holy God and His rightful judgment- death, separation from God and eternal punishment.
The gospel is not merely an invitation to receive forgiveness; it is a call to repentance, faith, and a transformed life. The Bible makes it clear that while Christians still struggle with sin in this world, they cannot continue living in the habitual practice of sin as though nothing has changed.
A genuine encounter with Jesus Christ completely changes a person.
You simply cannot be saved and remain the same. You have been born again, completely transformed. You cannot claim Christ as Savior while continuing to embrace the very sin that nailed Him to the cross in the first place. The grace of God is free to us, but it came at an immeasurable cost to Him.
Jesus paid the price for our salvation and because of what He has done, we are called to respond by repudiating sin, forsaking sin, turning from sin, and learning to hate sin as much as God hates it.
This is not salvation by works. We do not earn God’s favor through our efforts. We are saved by God’s grace through genuine repentance and saving faith in Jesus Christ alone. Yet the grace that saves us is also the grace that changes us and allows righteous living. Not because we are righteous, but because we have been declared righteous by God through the righteousness of Jesus.
The Christian life involves a continual battle against sin. We stumble. We fail. We confess. We repent. We get back up and continue following Christ. Our desire is no longer to justify sin but to put it to death.
The Bible speaks of three aspects of our salvation regarding sin:
The Penalty of Sin – Through saving faith in Christ, we have been justified. The guilt and condemnation of all sin- past, present and future, has been removed because Jesus paid our debt on the cross. He died so we could live.
The Power of Sin – Through the indwelling Holy Spirit, sin no longer has dominion over the believer. We now have the ability to obey God and pursue righteousness.
The Presence of Sin – One day, when Christ returns or calls us home, we will be glorified and forever delivered from the presence of sin. The struggle will end and we will be like Him.
Until that day, we are engaged in the lifelong process of sanctification– spiritual growth, maturity, discipleship.
We are being perfected.
Not perfected in the sense that we have already arrived, but perfected in the sense that God is continually conforming us to the image of His Son. Day by day, He is shaping our thoughts, desires, attitudes, and actions to become more like Christ, pleasing to Him and bringing Him glory.
So the question remains:
What are you going to do about sin?
Will you excuse it, justify it, hide it, and make peace with it?
Will you continue to let sin keep you from a personal relationship with Christ or even reject His saving grace completely because of it?
Or will you confess it, repudiate it, forsake it, turn from it, fight it, genuinely repent of it and hate it as much as God does and trust the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do?
The cross reminds us how serious sin really is. The empty tomb reminds us that victory is possible. And the Holy Spirit reminds us that God has not left us to fight this battle alone.
God’s grace comes with a price that Jesus paid and we, as born again believers, must live our lives accordingly, not just by a profession of faith, but by the possession of saving faith.
A true Christian is not someone who never sins.
A true Christian is someone who has declared war on sin and is learning, by the grace of God, to walk in obedience to Jesus Christ.
The question is not whether sin is present in your life.
The question is:
What are you going to do about it?
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