JAMES 1
14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. – James 1:14-21
JAMES 1 HOW SIN IS CONCEIVED
A poem by ILMA inspired by these verses
A person is naturally sinful and always thinks of himself
His heart longs for things that wants to satisfy his flesh
He is tempted and lured to cater to his desires or whims
Then sin begins its conceptions when he gives in
It then turns into an obsession to listen to its cravings
Which leads to spiritual death and keeps him wanting.
It is so clear in this chapter how James gives us a depiction of sin. Prior to the following verses, he mentions that sin doesn’t come from God because God never tempts us to sin. There is no evil in God at all. But because of our inherited sinful nature, sin actually comes from the human heart.
James presents how sin starts from its conception. Just like a woman carrying a baby in her womb, it first began when she had union with her husband and it produced a fetus, then conception began. Let’s use this fetus as a symbol of that union. When God created us, he made us like him, just as our parents passed on their own DNA to us. How infants would look is determined by the genes that the baby inherited from his/her parents. As humans, we have God’s DNA which is righteousness, but the devil changed that DNA to evil when he tempted the first humans and they became sinful or unrighteous. So, in each human being, we are inherently righteous because that is our make from God, but we were corrupted by evil, so we became tarnished with sin. Humans naturally want wickedness but they are also spiritually longing to be righteous because God has placed that in every human heart. We were made for God not for the devil. Without Christ, we will likely be more like the devil. When a child has more inherited looks or traits from one parent, those characteristics become predominant in him/her. Because there is this natural evil in every human being, we are predisposed to sin. We naturally follow the flesh and its cravings. James explains to us that because of such a tendency to sin, we will prefer to do it rather than go against it. So, he exposes to us the conception of sin so that as Christians we will be able to recognize the beginnings of its origin. When we are aware of our sinfulness, we can nip it in the bud when we are enticed to give in. Otherwise, we will fail to resist it and it will lead to spiritual death.
REFLECTION
· How can we nip sin in the bud before it destroys us?
