Day 4: Falling Short of the Glory of God

We have seen from Joshua 1:8 and 2 Peter 1:3-4 that God wants us to be prosperous and successful. God's divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness. So, why don’t we always experience that?

The problem that I'm going to deal with now is basic to our whole spiritual life: the problem of sin. When we are confronted with the fact that we have sinned, how can we be sure that God will forgive and bless us?

Let's first face the fact of sin. The whole Bible is very clear about it: there is no one who has not sinned. It applies to people of all races, all faiths, all backgrounds. It is one thing we all have in common. In 1 Kings 8:46, Solomon says:

"…there is no man who does not sin..." (NASB)

In Isaiah 53:6, the prophet says:

"All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way…" (NASB)

Notice how emphatic those words are, "all of us" and "each of us".

We have all gone astray, we have all turned each to his own way. The essence of going astray is not necessarily that we have committed some heinous sin like murder or adultery. But one thing all of us have in common: we have been stubborn, self-willed, and disobedient toward God. We have turned to our own way – and our own way is not God's way.

In the New Testament, Paul says:

"…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." (Romans 3:23 NASB)

Again, you see the essence of sin is not necessarily some terrible crime, but it is falling short of the glory of God. We need to understand the real nature and essence of sin.

I would define sin as a failure for which we are accountable. It is a failure to live according to the laws of God. It is a failure to fulfil the purpose for which God created us. It is a failure to live up to God's requirements of us. God created us that we might have the unspeakable privilege of living for His glory, of bringing glory to Him, our Creator. When we sin, we rob God of His glory, and we fail to fulfil the function for which we were created.

Sin is simply a failure to fulfil the function for which we were created by God – and it is a failure for which we are accountable. We cannot excuse ourselves by saying we couldn't help it. We are accountable for our sin.

Sin is a sobering reality that we must consider in order to understand the frustration so many people experience in life.

Now let's look at the prognosis of sin. Prognosis is, of course, a medical term. It means that when you have a disease, the doctor diagnoses it first, and then he tells you the course that your disease is likely to follow. Now, the prognosis of sin in the Bible is also very, very clear. There's no doubt about the course that this disease will take. In Romans 6:23, Paul says:

"For the wages of sin is death..." (NASB)

In other words, our wages are what we earn for what we do, and what we have all earned for the sins we have committed is death. That's clear, emphatic, simple and undeniable. It's a law.