Today's Word

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In Romans 7, the Apostle Paul, very clearly and with a great deal of regret, expresses his heart about sin, but not sin before his conversion but the sin that he finds himself committing after his conversion! I can certainly sympathise with Paul because my life is far from ‘sinless perfection’. Whilst we don’t have the same sinful ambitions that we had before Jesus saved us, sin is still a present threat in our lives.

So, what do we do about it? Well, certainly we must never pretend it doesn’t exist. What our new relationship with God does give us is two-fold as far as sin is concerned; firstly, the Holy Spirit gives us a greater sensitivity to sin. We begin to realise and look at sin more like God does; but secondly the Holy Spirit does give us power to fight those sinful ambitions. But we still fail because we are still human.

What is God’s attitude towards these many lapses? The Apostle John says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins”. So, confession is the way to restoring fuller relationship with God.

Way back in the Old Testament, the verse we are looking at in Joel goes on to say. “(Turn unto the Lord) …… for He is merciful”. There we have the complementary characteristic of God to ‘grace’. There are so many verses in the Bible in which grace and mercy are mentioned together. Because of His acceptance of us into His Family, we no longer have to bear the punishment for our sins because God is merciful. We might bring suffering on ourselves because of our sin, but God has already forgiven us In Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! 

Article written by Brian Preston, Elder @SFGH Church 

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