How many parts does a ball have? Three parts, and like a ball, we are made of three parts. Just like the ball skin, we have a body with the senses of hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste. Like the bladder, we have a soul, made up of our mind, will and emotions. Our mind and our emotions often dictate our will. And like the air, we have at the center, a spirit.

 

But unlike a ball, we have something else inside of us which is sin. It is something that is inside of you. You cannot surgically remove it. Sin corrupts our mind, and our emotions and sin’s goal is to ultimately destroy us. You did not ask for this, but scripture says you were born with this. Sin is defined as “missing the mark.” We all have failed to live perfectly under God’s law. Sin is anything you do or perform outside the will of God. The essence of sin is what we have done against God’s laws. The Law was created by God to show us that it is impossible for us to keep it to be holy enough and acceptable enough for God, and this is why there is a need for a savior, Jesus.

 

People like to compare sins, big sins versus little sins. We like to justify our little sins by comparing them to bigger sins, thinking we are not so bad after all. But here is what God sees about your sin. All sin is the same. If you pick up a small rock and throw it through a glass window, a small hole appears, the glass is cracked, and it has to be replaced. If you take a bigger rock and throw it at the same window, you have a bigger hole, but the end result is the same, the glass is broken and needs to be replaced. God sees all sin the same. Sin creates brokenness, regardless of the size.

 

And then we have another component called the flesh. God has placed into each of us divine needs, love, affirmation, value/worth, acceptance and security. These needs  can only be fully met by God however, your flesh is trying to meet God’s divine needs through the things of the world. The flesh is hungry and must eat to be satisfied. This is what we call inflation and like the valve of a ball, it is the introduction of the things of the world into you. The things of the world are limited, corrupted, and false, and result in deflation.

 

Questions to Ponder:

Look at your life. How are you trying to meet your divine needs?

Are you ever satisfied?

Do you continue to return to the same habits and bad relationships?

 

1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 - Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Romans 3:23-25 - For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life shedding his blood.

 

Romans 5:12-14 - When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break. Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come.