The relationship between sin and man
It is difficult to understand sin without understanding the relationship between God and man. The Lord desires to have a perfect relationship with us, but sin is the tool of the devil that fights against this noble aim of God.
Sin does not fall from the sky, as it has a context. It is a device set up by the devil to steal us from the heart of God. The devil has been cast out of heaven because he wanted to be God. The serpent uses sin as a tool that would make sure that he has ‘a company of the rejects’. He has fallen out from the heart of God, and he uses sin as a tool that could make us fall from grace.
“May the glory of the LORD endure forever, may the LORD rejoice in His works” (Psalms 104:31).
The relationship that man has with the word of God flows from the relationship that man has with God. It goes back to the reason God made man. Our God created everything that inhabits the universe so that all His creation could glorify Him. We were all created for God’s pleasure. Man was created to glorify the Lord in all things.
Every living person born of a woman was born out of the will of God, not because our parents wanted to have children. We were not born because our parents have prayed to the Lord, seeking for children. Indeed, some of our parents gave birth to their children after they have asked the Lord to bless them with children.
God has a will that predates the formation of the universe, and that will gave birth to all the children that were born. If the will of God was not to give birth to a child, that child would not be born regardless of the number of prayers his parents might direct to God.
A prayer for children is just a spiritual act that parent do in order to align their will with the will of the Father. The will of the God predates any prayer. In fact, it predates the birth of the parents. The Lord foreknew us before we were conceived in the wombs of our mothers. He is the one who made it possible for us to be born, and it is for this reason that every created person was born for God’s pleasure. We were born so that we could all glorify the Holy name of the Father.
The Lord delights in us when we behave in a manner that He approves. He has given us His word so that it may help us to do things according to His expectation. The word of God is a spiritual tool that helps us to glorify our Father in heaven. When we do according to the word of God, we put a smile on His face, but when we act in opposition to His word, we shame His holy name. Anyone who acts in opposition to God and His word behaves sinfully. Therefore, sin is a tool that Satan uses to make us dishonour God.
Assuredly, sin is the number one thing that makes us fight against our Father. Sin stands against all that our God stands for. The Lord is holy and He wants to have a relationship with those who abide in holiness, but sin has the opposing aim, it wants us to move away from the heart of God.
A sin is an act that fights against the word of God. Indeed, sin could never be defined outside man, because it is related to him. Sin is an action or thought that is undertaken by man in opposition to the will of God.
The Lord rules man through His word. His word expresses His perfect will for man. His word is a blueprint that helps us to please our God. It sets boundaries of what man could do and what man is prohibited from doing. When we do according to His word, we glorify our Father, but when we fight against His word, we act in opposition to His authority over us.
“Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”
“No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:1-5).
The relationship between man and sin started in the Garden of Eden. It started when the devil started to appear on the scene. Formerly, man only had a perfect relationship with God. The obedience of man to the word of God kept his relationship with God perfectly.
Before the devil appeared in the picture, man trembled at the word of God. Man did not see anything wrong with the word of God. It is only when the devil started to cast aspersions on the word of God that man began to question the authority of God.
The word of God is the authority of God over man. It is a tool that the Lord uses to assert His control over us. When we reject the word of God, we reject His authority over us. In the Garden of Eden, God used His word to give man permission to do everything God wanted man to do. What was God’s word that He gave to man in the Garden of Eden? God’s word to man was simple, and man could understand it very clearly. This is what the Lord commanded man to do and not to do:
“And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Genesis, 2:16-17, HCSB).
In the Garden of Eden, the word of God related to two things, not a thousand of commandments. Man could eat all the fruit of every tree, except the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Not only did the Lord give man His commandments, He also gave Him the consequences of not obeying His word. What was the consequence of undermining the word of God?
“for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Genesis, 2:17).
Indeed, it is clear that the consequences of not obeying the word of God were given to man so that God could save him from death. The commandments of God to man are good, even though they may appear rigid and unreasonable. They are given as a grace to warn man of the consequences of undermining God. These commandments flow from the heart of God that overflows with love for His creation.
If God did not love us, He would not care about the pains we may suffer as a result of our rejection of His word. His word warns us about taking the path that fights against God, and everyone who does not obey His word will realise the foolishness of doing so.
When we cry because of our disobedience to the word of God, we would do so out of choice, not because God wants to harm us. His word is intended as grace that is meant to help us to choose the path that God wants us to travel in. This path is the path of peace and perfect fellowship with our Master, Jesus. But when we chose the path of disobedience, we will travel on the road of death and pain.
It is very clear that man understood the expectations of God. Man understood the expectation of God’s word because those expectations were revealed to man in the simple language that man could understand perfectly. Surely, man did not need university degrees to understand the expectations of the Father.
When the devil approached Eve with his evil plan to steal her away from the love of God, it was clear that Eve understood what God expected from her and her husband.
“Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’? ”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die’ ” (Genesis 3:1-3)
Eve did not only understand the commandments of God, she understood the tree of knowledge of good and evil. She knew exactly where that tree was located. She understood it because the Lord showed it to them. As a result of this, Eve could not feign ignorance of what God said to them.
It is clear from this that when God gives us a commandment, He makes sure that we all know exactly what He is speaking about. It is for this reason that God commanded Moses to write the Ten Commandments, so that all the coming generations may know exactly what God expects from His chosen nation. Indeed, this is the reason we have a Bible that captures the will and mind of God for His children.
There is something that is interesting that the word of God reveals about the devil. The devil is more shrewd that any person created by God. He is shrewd because he understands spiritual issues far better than all of us combined. We could stand on the same path of understanding when we use the might of God’s word, which gives us the wisdom of God. When we stand on the strength of the word of God, we could easily defeat any temptation from the serpent.
We can never defeat temptation on the basis of our wisdom because the devil is wiser than all of us combined. Our strength against him is the word of God, which elevates us to the wisdom of God. When we depend on the word of God to fight against temptation, we could overcome every temptation because we would act exactly the way God would act. In this regard, the word of God gives us the nature of God, a nature that could overcome every weapon that the devil may send our way.
It is wise to count on the might of God’s strength, which is His word. His word is life and a light to all the children of God, as it helps them to see what they would ordinarily not see. It gives us the spiritual nature of God because through His word, all the spiritual mysteries are revealed to us.
Through His word, we are able to comprehend what a human mind would never understand on its own. When we embrace the strength of His word, we are also able to see what a naked eye can never see, and hear what no human ear could ever hear. We could do all this because the word of God has given us the spiritual nature of God. This spiritual nature makes us see all and know all. This is the spiritual ability that is not constrained by anything.
There is nothing that is more important to a child of God than God’s word. God is your Lord only when you submit your life to His word, and He would cease to be your God when you decide to make sin your god.
Anyone who lives in sin worships sin, not God. It does not matter who you are, when you decide to undermine the word of God, you have chosen to define your life outside the influence of God. When you undermine the word of God, you are fighting against God, and you have made sin your new master.
Temptation on its own does not have any spiritual consequence. It is only bait or an offer that the devil dangles towards you in order to encourage you to insult God. Temptation would have a spiritual consequence only when you take that offer to insult God. Temptation and sin are not the same because temptation is a weapon that Satan uses to encourage us to rebel against the authority of God, and sin is the bullet that is released to harm the Lord.
When we accept the offer to undermine God, we have decided to leave the heart of God. Those who abide in the heart of God are those who incline their ears to the word of God. Surely, temptation is a weapon that the devil uses to steal us away from the love of God. And when we rebel against the Lord, we would be godless. In fact, when we reject God, the devil would be our god.
The devil uses temptation as bait that could hook you in an abusive relationship with sin. If you fall for the bait, you will surely die, and everything that is called by your name will be contaminated with a death of one kind or another.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6: 23).
You cannot understand sin without understanding the intentions of sin. Sin is doing the opposite of what God wants to do for us. The Lord wants to give us life and to give life to everything that is associated with us. His will is to resurrect our dead fortunes, and He has given us the righteousness of Jesus to further this aim.
When we gladly receive the gift of Righteousness, everything in us becomes alive. We receive a new spiritual life that joins us with God. And when we are one with Jesus, everything that is called by our name would receive new life. The blood of Jesus restores everything that was dead in our lives. It restores all the important relationships we have with others, and it also gives us unimaginable joy in the arms of the Holy Spirit.
The blood of Jesus also restores our hope of eternal joy that awaits all the children of obedience. When we are in Jesus, we have a new goal that we strive for. We want to receive eternal life that God promised to all who have forsaken the world of sin for the righteousness of God. In this regard, eternal life becomes the race that is set before all the children of God. And anyone who has run the course of his live in righteousness would one day receive his crown of victory, which is a permanent existence in God.
This permanent existence or peace would make us join the counsel of God, where we would no longer be called servants, as we would occupy the throne of righteousness alongside Jesus. We would be the fourth part that makes up the Godhead. We will live in God and God would abide in us forever. There would be a permanent union between God and all the children of righteousness. At that time, we would speak like Jesus when he said:
“In that day you will know that I am in My Father, you are in Me, and I am in you. The one who has My commands and keeps them is the one who loves Me. And the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father. I also will love him and will reveal Myself to him” (John 14:20-21, HCSB)
God wants to give us an abundant life, but temptation wants to hook us up with sin, which is an abusive partner. Anyone who loves sin has a new partner that would suck the life out of them. Sin is an abusive partner that wants to kill you and to kill your position in God. You may find sin attractive and delicious, but sin has not come into your life to give you goodies. It has come to destroy you, and every time sin tastes good, know that it has given you a sting of death.
You might not see the bitter side of sin because you might be so in love with it, but it does exist. You will only realise the consequences of sin when you start to cry or bleed because of it. Sin is death, tears, blood, sickness, defeat and stagnation. Every time you embrace sin, you have embraced all the above. The painful consequences of sin may not come to you simultaneously, but you would experience them all. As long as you love sin, you would cry more, sweat more, bleed more, fail more, be afflicted more, and stagnate more. These are all the fruits of loving sin, and anyone who embraces sin will be rewarded with them.
Indeed, when you love sin, you are involved in an abusive relationship. Sin is an abusive partner as it hates you and wants to destroy you completely. It wants to kill you spiritually and bodily. And these are all the areas of your life that sin wants to destroy: your health; your joy; your favour with God and man; your finances; your marriage; your peace and joy; and ultimately sin wants to steal the promise of eternal life that God made to those who believe in the righteousness of Jesus. There is no area of your life that sin does not intend to destroy.
Sin wants to destroy you completely, but it does not want you to know about this. Sin is cunning and it would always hide its evil intentions against you. It only presents the other side that seems to be beautiful or tasty. There is nothing beautiful about sin, but sin would fool you by making itself beautiful or delicious. Surely, sin may look beautiful and taste good, but this is only a spiritual camouflage. It masks its ugly and poisonous side by looking beautiful or by tasting good.
There is nothing that is as ugly as sin, and there will never be anything that is more poisonous than sin. Sin is more dangerous than any physical weapon you may think of, and it has killed more people than any weapon. It has killed more people than all the world wars combine, and it would continue to do so as long there are people who do not understand its evil intentions against them. Sin has killed more people than all the viruses and bacteria combined because sin is the magnet that attracts viruses and bacteria in your body. If you are involved in a relationship with sin, you would not be in good health, because sin attracts sicknesses.
Sin is a tool that steals something from you. Those who are in love with sin do not understand what they have put themselves in. The devil is a liar who would always tell you lies about sin and its consequences. In fact, the devil would do all to conceal how destructive sin is to you and everything that is linked to your name. Every lie from the serpent is meant to keep you blind to what is happening in your life. Sin is destroying the lives of many people, but these people are still in love with it because they do not realise that sin is responsible for the mess they find themselves in.
“A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance” (John 10:10)
The devil is a thief who steals from us by making us fall into sin. Sin is a repellent of blessings and all other good things. Where there is sin, there is barrenness. Indeed, sin does not only still your blessings, it still your joy and peace as well. Sin and blessings are mutually exclusive, where you find sin, you will never find any blessing. If you are blessed and live in sin, know that very soon, your blessings will develop wings, they would fly away from you.
All the blessings come from the Lord, and because of this, they are a product of light. God is the light and everything that comes from Him has His light. His light only abides in a spiritual environment of purity or holiness. You would never receive anything from God when you stay where darkness stays. Sin is darkness because it comes from the devil. Anyone who lives in sin has decided to forsake the light of God which brings blessings and breakthroughs.
Sin also steals our spiritual identity or our spiritual calling. Every person born of a woman has a spiritual purpose and this purpose would be achieved through their spiritual gifts. A spiritual gift is our spiritual hand that furthers the mission of heaven on earth. Our spiritual gifts are the gifts that God has given to His church.
A church is the centre of God’s influence on earth. It is a place that has been tasked with saving the lives of many. Our spiritual gifts are linked to the mission of the church, as we use them to advance the kingdom of God on earth. Our spiritual gifts are God’s solution to many problems that are experienced by people.
The world would be a poorer place if we do not operate in our spiritual gifts. Those who are sick would die because there would be no people who could pray for them. When those who have been blessed with the gift of healing pray for people, the Lord is able to heal them. The same is true for those who have been blessed with the gift of giving. Those who are blessed with the gift of giving are able to impact materially on the lives of many.
Many things that people seek from the Lord, would come from all those who have been blessed with different spiritual gifts. When we do not operate in our spiritual gifts, the church would lack the power to transform the world that hungers for the power of God. The Lord has blessed us with various spiritual gifts so that He could use us to make a meaningful change throughout the world.
The devil knows that every person has been blessed with at least one spiritual gift. Satan is a destroyer, but God wants to bless the world through us. God has purposed us to be the instruments of blessings to others. Satan would always try to prevent us from being used by God as instruments of change. To prevent us from being used by the Lord, the devil would trap us into a relationship with sin so that sin could block us from discovery our spiritual purpose. If you abide in sin, you would not discover the purpose of God for your life.
There is nothing that hides our spiritual purpose than sin. Many people have died without realising their spiritual purpose on earth. The devil is the one who trapped them into a relationship with sin so that he could hide the huge responsibility God has given to them. The Lord has huge plans for all of us, and we could only discover His purpose for us when we abide in His purity.
Satan does not only hide what we have been purposed for, he would fight those who know their mission on earth. He would fight them in order to stop them from doing what God has purposed for them. He would try to trap them to fall into sin in order to destroy what they are doing for the kingdom of God.
Those who are labouring for God through their spiritual gifts would cease to be effective in their ministries when they fall into sin. Sin decreases us spiritually because it chases the presence of the Lord in us. The Holy Spirit is the one who is responsible for our spiritual gifts, and as soon we fall into a relationship with sin, the Spirit of Holiness will depart from us, and we would not have access to His power.
Satan does not want us to make a meaningful change to the world, and he would wed us to sin so that sin could destroy our spiritual blessings. Anyone who has not discovered his spiritual calling would fail to do so as long as he is involved with sin, and those who are labouring for the Lord in their spiritual gifts would soon lack the power to minister the grace of God to others as soon as they fall into sin.
God has big plans for us, and the Lord has blessed us with different spiritual gifts so that we could be His agents of change on earth. Our spiritual gifts are so powerful and infinite for the one who has blessed us with those gifts is infinite. We would grow in our spiritual gifts when we abide in the holiness of God, but we will soon decrease when we make sin our partner.
Sin would steal what you have and what you stand to have. It steals the blessing you are currently enjoying, and it would steal those blessings that you are not aware of. When you live in sin, you would never discover the purpose of God for your life. A life of righteousness is the only thing that would open all the doors for you, it would open doors that you never imaged possible.
Sin is a tool that Satan uses to makes us lukewarm. The serpent is very cunning indeed. He would try to prevent us from realising our true potential. The devil would do all that he could do to make sure that we are not saved. He is preventing many people from discovering what Jesus did for them on the cross of Calvary. He would keep them occupied with sin so that they may not realise their need for salvation.
When the serpent has failed to prevent them from discovering the saving power of the cross of Calvary, he would do all to interfere with their faith, by making them weak Christians who are lukewarm. Satan knows that a lukewarm Christian is still wedded to him. Any person who is spiritually lukewarm has a confused identity because he does not know whether he belongs to Jesus or Satan. He is a spiritual fence-sitter. A lukewarm person does not know whether he is coming or going.
The spiritual rules do not permit this situation because the spiritual realm is the world of absolutes. You are either with Jesus or the devil because you cannot have it both ways. Anyone who is a spiritual fence-sitter belongs to the devil because the devil is the author of confusion.
Assuredly, anyone who is spiritually lukewarm is caught between two spiritual worlds. He wants to be with Jesus, but at the same time, the world still appeals to him. This person has not made a clean break with the devil as he still loves sin. Anyone who loves sin loves the author of sin, who is the devil.
“So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out
of My mouth” (Revelation 3:16).
God hates anyone who is spiritually lukewarm because the Lord hates pretence. Anyone who is spiritually lukewarm pretends to be with Jesus, whereas he is still in love with the devil. This is spiritual prostitution, which the Lord hates so much.
God is holy, and due to this, we cannot play spiritual games with Him. The Lord can distinguish between a genuine person and a fake one. Anyone who is lukewarm is not genuine about his faith. That person wants to be accepted by the world and God at the same time.
When you want to be acceptable to the world, you would not be acceptable to Jesus. Our Master expects us to be faithful as he is a faithful God. Anyone who blows hot and cold still has not found the truth. He has not found the way that leads to the cross of Calvary. That person may claim to be born again, but that would be a lie for that person would still be wedded to the devil and sin.
You may not realise that a spiritually lukewarm person loves sin because he may appear like any normal Christian. He may go to church every day, and partake in the activities of the church. Indeed, God sees the heart of a lukewarm person. A lukewarm person can hide from us, but he will never hide from the piercing eyes of God.
Anyone who is spiritually lukewarm labours in vain for the Lord, the Lord does not recognise what that person is doing. The Lord searches our hearts every second, and he knows the motives of our actions. Anyone who is lukewarm is just acting for other Christians.
That person wants to be regarded as a God loving person, but he still loves the devil. His heart is not with God. Indeed, his body may be in the house of the Lord, but his mind or soul would always be in fellowship with the devil.
The devil is not threatened by pretenders. Anyone who is lukewarm does not threaten the kingdom of darkness because that person is still controlled by the devil despite attending church every day. The Lord will never use anyone who has confused identities. Our Father can only use a faithful person who would be willing to die for His name’s sake.
Any lukewarm person might like to be used by the Lord for His glory, but God is a very principled God. He does not use what does not belong to Him. If your heart is with the devil, the Lord would not use you.
If you want to be used by God, you need to confess your situation to him. Ask Him to help you with your confused situation. When your heart truly hates sin and embraces the righteousness of God, the Lord would help you to break free from the control of the devil. God is a pure God who wants us to be as pure as He is. He could only use us to glorify His name when we love His righteousness and reject sin and the devil.
Many Christians are spiritually lukewarm, and because of that, the church lacks people who may impact positively on the lives of those who still need a Saviour to free them from the bondage of sin. The church’s strength is equal to the strength of those who attend it. If the majority of people who attend a particular church are spiritually lukewarm, that church would also lack the power to minister effectively to those who need the message of salvation.