What Is Sin?Sample

“Surely you know that you become the slaves of whatever you give yourselves to. Anything or anyone you follow will be your master. You can follow sin, or you can obey God” (Romans 6:16, ERV).

People are slaves of sin.

We humans like to see ourselves as independent individuals who are able to make our own choices. But the Bible clearly tells us that we are actually slaves. When Jesus spoke about this, His audience wondered, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free?”. Jesus’ sobering answer was: “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin”.

Adam and Eve had a completely free will. But we, as their descendants, don’t. The desires of our hearts are towards evil. This means that we cannot choose of ourselves to do what is pleasing to God. We have a lot of freedom, and therefore a lot of responsibility, to make the right choices. But since our hearts are corrupted by sin, we will generally choose sin over righteousness.

The apostle Paul exclaims: “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Romans 7:18-19). He at least tried to do the right thing, after he had come to faith.

Many people are not even aware of their slavery. How about you?