Romans 5:12
Have you ever taken a bite into a juicy apple only to discover it had a worm? Now, I know that’s not the best picture you wanted to have in mind today. Have you ever stopped to consider how the worm got on the inside of that apple? Maybe you thought it burrowed in from the outside. Yet this is not how it happened at all. The tiny worm actually comes from the inside. It happens when an insect lays an egg in the apple blossom. Sometime later, the worm hatches in the heart of the apple and then begins to eat its way out.
The Bible says that sin is a lot like that. It always begins in the heart of a person and then works its way out through our thoughts, words, and actions. All of humanity is born with a sinful nature. This is precisely the point that Paul makes in Romans 5:12. It was through one man that sin entered the world, and death through sin, and that is how death has spread to all men, because all sinned. We don’t become sinners as we grow older. No, we are born sinners.
If it were not for the mercy and grace of God, our entire lives would look like the apple you bit into–nice and shiny on the outside, but rotten on the inside. That’s why the gospel of Jesus Christ is such good news! Through faith in Christ, sinners can be forgiven and born again and changed by the power of God from the inside out. The gospel doesn’t merely deal with symptoms. Instead, it gets to the source of the problem–the heart!
Father, thank You for such awesome grace that changes me from the inside out. To be in Christ is to be a new creature. Old things have passed away, and all things have become new. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
For more, read Romans 5:1-22
