2010 – August 18 – Personal Accountability for Sin

Study from God’s Word… Ezekiel, Chapters 15 - 18 … Passage for Reflection: Ezekiel 18: 20 … NIV 20 The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.

My Journal for Today: There is no clearer discourse in all of the Bible on the responsibility and accountability for sin than in Ezekiel, Chapter 18. Then why, you might ask, did our merciful, loving God allow all 10 of Job’s children to be consumed and die in a storm, perpetrated by Satan, when they did not sin against their God? And I charge you to go back and read Ezekiel 18 and Job 42 as well; and you’ll see that Job’s kids were not lost to him. They were given life eternal because of their faith in God as shown by their righteous choices.

I need to make this simple for my own understanding … and perhaps for yours as well. We need to remember that God hates it when a righteous man (or woman), one of HIS children, dies because of the irresponsibility or sinfulness of some other of His creatures, such as what Satan is allow to perpetrate on mankind and what mankind does to his own kind. I must always remember that I, and I alone, am responsible for MY SINS. If you’re a sinner, … and you are, and you sin, … and you do, I’m not held responsible, by God, for your sins, as you are not held accountable for my sins. BUT, (and there’s another one of those big “BUTs”) we are held responsible, and there will be consequences, for our own sinful choices.

The Apostle Paul also made this clear after Jesus had died for the sins of all mankind, … that though all are sinners, Jesus saw fit to make it right for all believers in His atoning blood sacrifice, that we might LIVE though we are yet sinners (see Romans 5: 8). Dr. Smith makes these powerful truths quite clear in his devotional for today, as he writes, ”Whereas the trespass (sin) is always personal and never vicarious, the gift (salvation) is always vicarious and never personal.”

I hope, for our eternal sake, that each one of us truly grasps the magnitude of this truth to believe and receive God’s eternal gift of salvation wrapped up in His gift of grace.

My Prayer for Today: Lord, I am responsible for my sin; but You gave me eternal life in spite of it. May I now be accountable for Your gift by using Your grace to share Your glorious gift of salvation with others and prayerfully they will receive it – from YOU - and find the life You have waiting for all who do. Amen