There are no little enemies

Many times we make the mistake of judging an enemy by his size.

Everyone was amazed, during the world football championships in France in 1998, at the behaviour of one of the best players in the world, RONALDO. He seemed to be somewhere other than on the field during the game.

Physically he looked good, but something strange was going on. Later we learned that he was having a minor health crisis which had hindered him from giving his best. Sometimes the little problems do us a lot of damage, maybe because we don't pay enough attention to them.

When we speak of sin, everybody understands what we are talking about.

At least that's what we think. Sin means to kill, steal, hurt other people, tell big lies... almost everyone would agree with that. God doesn't. The Bible says that sin is everything that is not perfect.

We often think that we are righteous; after all, we don't commit big sins, we behave ourselves, and we try to do good for others. Who could say anything against us? God, however, says that there isn't ONE single righteous person in the world; we have all sinned. No-one is perfect. Well, okay, we realize that is true, but why doesn't God just overlook these little sins? After all, they don't really hurt anyone.

Let me give you an example. Just imagine that you are in hospital for an operation. There is the surgeon in a clean white robe, with all his instruments perfectly in order in front of him. He picks up the scalpel and, suddenly, you see that it is not clean. "Hey! What are you doing?" you say.

"You're not going to operate on me with that dirty scalpel, are you?" The surgeon replies, "It doesn't matter. It only has very small germs, so small that you can't even see them. The theme of our hospital is 'live and let live', and germs also have a right to live." Without a second thought, you would run away from that hospital as fast as possible, because you know that even one of the microscopic germs on that scalpel could kill you.

God is not unjust for not overlooking even one of our sins. When he does this he is protecting our very lives. Do you think you are righteous? Your sin accuses you. However small you think your sins are, they can cause your destruction. In today's story we discovered that a small physical problem can paralyse the body of a great sportsman. How much more, in our spiritual life, can just one sin come to be the destruction of our life.

So now, what do we do? Very simple - there is someone who took our place and received the punishment that we deserved for our sins, Jesus Christ.

His death freed us from condemnation, and his resurrection gives us life. Do you believe it? God says that only those who believe have the right to receive his forgiveness.