No Sin; No Christ

One day, toward the end of practice, my coach gave us the last 30 minutes to practice on our own. This was a time we could practice the skills we needed to work on.

After 10 minutes, I had one teammate start packing up. Our coach went over to her and asked what she was doing, and she told Coach that she had nothing else to work on. We all knew this was the wrong answer. He then asked her if she had perfected every skill necessary in our sport. Of course, she answered no, and then he calmly instructed her to keep practicing.

It is foolish to think that we have perfected our sport; there is always room for improvement. Likewise, it is foolish to believe that we walk through life sin-free. As 1 John 1:8-10 says, anyone who thinks they have no sin is deceiving themselves and is not telling the truth. Scripture reminds us that humanity is sinful and lives in a fallen world. If there were no sins, then there would be no need for Christ. All you have to do is look around and see the sin around us and in ourselves.

The good news is that God is willing and able to forgive us of our sins, free us from the bondage of the world and cleanse our hearts. We need only to repent. So, why don’t we? Is it our pride telling us we have done nothing wrong? Maybe we compare our sins to others and think it's not that bad.

Apply this line of thinking to your sport. Do you stop practicing because you are better at a particular skill than your team’s worst player? You don’t become the best by setting the bar as low as possible. Likewise, we do not become good people by comparing our lives to the worst person we know. We have sin, and we need God.