Sin Doesn’t Make You Bad . . .



Ephesians 2:1-5
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Sin doesn’t make you bad – sin makes you dead!

This is a startling concept. We are raised to think of sin in terms of being “naughty”. We’ve done something wrong; something bad for which we need to be punished. Once that punishment has been paid, we’re “good” until we sin again and the cycle repeats itself. Here in Ephesians 2, Paul reshapes our thinking about that concept.

Our sin takes us way beyond bad. Our sins takes us right into death. “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins . . .” [In the midst of this conversation, please do not confuse physically dead people with what is being discussed here. This passage is about spiritually dead people.]  There are millions of people walking around who have no idea that in reality they are spiritually dead. They are missing out on the abundant life that God has planned for every person who believe in Him and is governed by the Holy Spirit. Their future holds permanent separation from God and complete destruction.

But our God had a plan to bring us back from that death and give us new life through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. Because of His work we are not now “good” we are now alive. Because Jesus did pay the price that our sin demanded through His death, we are now free from the bondage of the grave and life is ours forever. The next time you focus on confession of your sins, remember these words and celebrate the tremendous gift you have been given, for it is truly amazing.

Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. He came to made dead people alive!

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