Strayed and Rebelled
Strayed and Rebelled
Pastor Jim Quigley
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Most people have a completely wrong understanding of who they are. Many believe that they are, generally speaking, a good person—perhaps with a few foibles and shortcomings. But this could not be further from the truth. We are all inherently bad, not good. We have a nature that’s chief desire is for the self and not for God. By nature, we rebel against God and His commands. By nature, we stray from the path of His will. By nature, we delight in sin rather than in Him. By nature, we love the darkness of our sin and don’t want to come to the light. The indictment in Isaiah 53:6 is true of every one of us: “All [not some or a few or most, but all] we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way.” By nature and by choice, we have strayed from God’s good commands and have rebelled against His good reign in our hearts. We have chosen our own self-centered, self-serving, self-exalting ways. Paul says it bluntly: “None is righteous, no, not one…no one does good, not even one” (see Romans 3:10-18). Your sinful nature does not just affect a small part of you, but all of who you are.
Before you trusted in Jesus, your heart was enslaved to sin—that is, you preferred sin rather than Christ. We need a Savior who will break the chains that enslave us to sin. We need a Savior who will free us from our prison cell of sin. We need a Savior who will carry us out of the darkness and into the light. God the Father sent God the Son to be that Savior that we desperately needed
God the Father saved His people by putting all of their sins—their iniquities—on Jesus. With their sins on His shoulders, Jesus paid the full penalty and punishment that His true followers deserved for all of their sinful straying and rebelling against God. We were utterly, completely lost and enslaved to our sin. But because our iniquities were laid on Him, we are freed from our bondage to sin and can live in the light of the gospel when we truly trust Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
Reflection: Spend time confessing (specific) sins that you have committed against God. Ask God to forgive you for the ways that you have wandered from His will and instead rebelled against Him for your own selfish, self-centered gain. Then give thanks to God for Jesus who alone can rescue you from your sin. And if you don’t believe in Christ today, ask God to reveal Himself to you through the Bible that you might confess your sin and trust in Christ as your Lord and Savior.