ALL

Rom. 3:^23-25 (NKJV) “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness…”(emphasis added).

For the past two days, we have been looking at the four P’s of sin and how they affect us. The four P’s of sin are – the penalty of sin, the power of sin, the pollution of sin and the presence of sin. We established that while the deliverance from the penalty of sin is instant, the deliverance from the pollution and the power of sin is ongoing, also known as sanctification. The fourth is the presence of sin and we said, we will not be delivered from the presence of sin until we see Jesus. Even if you do not sin, because by God’s grace the first three P’s are taken care of, your colleague at work that shares the same desk with you may be neck-deep in sin. So, the presence of sin is inevitable, but your own light will overcome the darkness (say Amen).

Eph.2:^1-2 (NRSV) “You were dead through the trespasses and sins.  in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient” (emphasis added). The Bible says, once lived in other words, you used to be like that. You used to follow the course of this world, you used to go with anything that is fashionable, you used to just do what was trending in the world. I hope it is not still like that? The Bible says, “…the ruler of the power of the air…”; reveals to us who is actually controlling the trends, believe it or not. Let’s take sagging jeans for example, I can tell you for a fact that that has nothing to do with the Holy Ghost. What will you do if you walked into a church and the pastor is sagging his jeans? You probably will tell him to pull up the jeans so that people can focus on Jesus.

God is saying, the period you live for the trends is in the past. Do not get me wrong, when we say trends, we are not talking about looking nice or looking fashionable. That is not what God is saying. There are obvious trends that are not of God and they are controlled by the power of the air, the spirit that is at work among those who are disobedient. The word ‘lived’ is the word to meander, to roam aimlessly. God was saying, that you used to roam aimlessly, going from place to place. You thought you knew what you were doing but you were actually roaming aimlessly. That is who you were, but now this is who you are – you are a child of God! Eph.2:³ (NRSV, emphasis added) “All of us once lived among them…”; just so you know, we have all been there!

Prayer (song): Thank You, Jesus, for the grace that You have given us. I could never repay You but from my heart, I’d like to say that I thank You. Amen!