Just one mistake by Gary Rose

And I thought: This is the reason why I am glad that Christians are under the system of grace and not under one of law.(Rom.6:14) One mistake under law and you are guilty and deserve punishment. (Gal. 3:10) As human beings we are prone to err, so we are guilty of disobeying God from time to time. Hopefully, we do not make a habit of doing this, for this would be very dangerous to our eternal destiny. I love how the apostle John puts it in his first epistle:

1 John 1 ( English Majority Text Version )

 ^[5] And this is the message which we have heard from Him and we announce to you, that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.
  ^[6] If we claim to have fellowship with Him, and we are walking in the darkness, we are lying, and are not practicing the truth.
  ^[7] But if we are walking in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
  ^[8] If we claim that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
  ^[9] If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
  ^[10] If we claim that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. 

When we sin, we must realize that we have sinned and confess this before God. It is often a difficult thing to do, but it must be done. Verse nine (above) begins with a little word – if. This conditional article is so important, for without acknowledgement of our errant thoughts or actions, how can we be forgiven? As I say these words, I think of the most spiritual people I have ever known; they have one thing in common- purity, for they would often say or do things that would reveal they were thinking about pleasing God. Paul comes to mind as the foremost of these; he said to Timothy in his first letter:   ^[15] Faithful is this word, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. (1 Tim 1:15 EMTV). If Paul, who penned 13 books of the New Testament could say something like this, perhaps it would be advisable for us to take a closer look at our own lives?

Yes, we all make mistakes; some quite small and others, well, a bit too obvious. The world will find fault at just one mistake, but a Christian’s worry is not so much as to what the world thinks, but rather- what will God think about my behavior? Lord, help us all do a special spiritual inventory of our lives and confess our sins; I promise – Jesus is listening!