Every day I wake up I know that I am one day closer to heaven.  I was thinking the other day about how much time I have left on earth.  Obviously none of us knows how much time we really have, because we could die five minutes from now.  A coworker of mine for the past two years clocked out about six weeks ago and went home.  They found her the next morning. She had had a stroke, and nothing they did to help her worked. She died on February 21st.  She was my age.

But if I live a “normal lifespan” I have about 20-30 years left at the most.  And as I think about how brief that is, I examine my life and can only feel sadness at the enormity of the sin that I have committed in my life. I have served God, but not enough.  Not nearly enough. I feel like Oskar Schindler at the end of Schindler’s List and I know that I will always feel that way. 

Because I am a sinner. 

I choose to do what is wrong.  Every day I sin.  Every day I confess my sins to God, knowing that the next day I will be in the same position, confessing more sins to God, because I have a sin nature. 

Every person sins.  Every. Single. Person.  And it’s not just one sin that we do over and over, it’s a multitude of sins: gluttony, lust, greed, pride, hatred, anger, homosexuality, ignoring God, selfishness, laziness, dishonesty, etc…etc…etc…

My only consolation is that I am born again.  My sin weighs down on me like a thing that is very heavy, but I know with every fiber of my being that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth 2000 years ago and died on the cross to pay the penalty for ALL my sin and the sins of the whole world. 

Are you an angry person? Jesus died for you.  Are you a thief?  Jesus died for you.  Some people think that certain sinners (or should I just say humans) are lost forever and cannot be saved, but there is only one sin that you can commit that God cannot forgive:  rejecting Christ.  If you reject God and the forgiveness that He offers for ALL of your sins, then you cannot be saved from God’s wrath, and you will suffer for eternity in the lake of fire. 

I Corinthians 6:9-10 says, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.” 

That’s a pretty hefty list.  And some people look at that list and say, “See?  There’s certain people who can’t be saved! They are lost forever! There’s no hope for them!”  But these people stopped reading too soon.  Because verse 11 says “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” 

See, Paul knew that there were people in the Corinthian church who were former drunks, former homosexuals, former adulterers, former idolaters, former thieves, etc.  But they were washed, they were sanctified. They repented of their sin and turned to God, and they were FORGIVEN! 

As long as you are breathing, it is never too late to repent of your rebellion against God and trust in Christ, no matter what sins you have committed. And once you trust in His sacrifice for you, then everything you say and do should start to come into alignment with what He wants for you. I have said it over and over:  Christians are not sinless, but we should sin less.

And now I start another day, praying to God that I will sin less today, and that He will use me to lead souls to Christ and to glorify Him.  What about you?  Do you know Christ? If so, are you living for Him or for your own selfish desires?  Trust in Christ for salvation, and then trust Him that He knows what is best for you, which includes reading the Bible and examining your life to see what doesn’t match up with what He wants for you.