Conscious of Our Sin

Romans 3:20

“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.”

I used to build model airplanes when I was kid.  I opened the box and all I saw was a bunch of flat parts held together by some plastic rods.  It did not look like the picture at all.  As I followed the instructions, one by one, the pieces all seemed to have a special place in the model.  If I had all of the pieces and I followed all of the instructions, then it usually would turn out like the picture.  Most of the time it did, but then sometimes one piece was missing and it didn’t look like the picture at all.  

The Israelites were given the Mosaic law as a guide to live by.  It was a rule book from God that they could refer to for the do’s and don’ts of their life and relationship with God.  Well, it did not take long before they did not follow it.  Those 40 years in the desert were a time where the Lord had to teach them to rely on Him all the while pressing out the slave mentality they had for over 400 years in Egypt. 

The one thing that the law did was point out the sin of the nation.  The right path was laid out yet only a few found it.  Even David, a man after God’s heart, messed up in many ways.  The law was good at pointing out the sin, but it was clear that God’s plan was to send a perfect sacrifice for the atonement of all sin, Jesus.  Jesus gave us atonement, through His blood, salvation, and grace. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that “We are saved by grace and not by works so that no man can boast.”  Romans 3:23-24 tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  

Today, realize that your sin is not the last stop in your journey to righteousness.  Some of us camp on our sin and wear it as a scarlet letter for all to see.  We somehow get comfortable with it because we don’t know how to identify ourselves without it.  Your journey to faith in Christ might have some rabbit trails but Christ can use them all as a testimony for His glory. 

Without the knowledge of our sin, we can never repent from it nor turn from its ways.  Just like the missing piece from the model airplane, we need all of the parts in order to look like Christ.  Our sin is a testimony we have overcome by the blood of the Lamb.  So start moving forward with Christ knowing that His grace is sufficient for even your worst day of sin.  We all are never too far away for God to reach out and love us.   

Steve, a guy in my men’s group, told his testimony last night.  He told us that when he was walking up to the church for the first time he felt a love he could not describe and all he knew was that he never wanted to be any other place than under the wings of the Lord Jesus. Conscious of our sin, we boldly proclaim the blood of Jesus that covers us.