Thought from today’s Bible reading from Jeremiah 10-13.
“Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil” (Jeremiah 13:23, NIV).
Some wrongfully use this verse to argue that man is born in sin and cannot get out of sin without some direct operation on his heart from God. This is not what the passage is teaching.
Instead of addressing people who had been born in sin – which no one has been (Ecclesiastes 7:29) – this passages addresses those who had departed from God and had gone into sin by their own choice. This is not about the Calvinistic doctrine of total depravity, rather it is a warning about the danger of choosing to follow after sin.
When sin becomes a habit, it is very difficult to forsake it. We should note that the Scriptures promise us that every temptation can be overcome (1 Corinthians 10:13). However, the more we sin and make it a habit, the harder it becomes to find or decide to take “the way of escape” that the Lord promised.
Rather than making sin so common that it becomes second nature to us, we must diligently work to avoid sin and remove it from our lives. The longer we remain in sin, the harder it is to repent.
Tomorrow’s reading: Jeremiah 14-17
[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]
Daily Notes & Observations contains all 365 articles from this series and is available in paperback from Gospel Armory.
