“There is goodness within and everyone is good and everyone deserves to be happy. Happiness is the goal of life.” I used to hold tightly to this belief until I realized the reality of life: that there is evil around us and even a more depressing thought, that there is evil within me. Evil around us doesn’t need to be argued as this can be seen in our communities, but the evil within is something we don’t like to face. In an honest assessment of ourselves, we know at one point we felt, thought of or acted something that will hurt someone, ourselves and God. We don’t need anyone to teach this to us, it comes innately installed.

The bible calls this sin, we call this mistake. We can simply say sorry with a mistake, we deserve death and punishment with sin (Romans 6:23). Mistake has something to do with being unable to live up to a standard, ignorance, or just plain ‘not being able to do it’. Sin means missing the mark…..DELIBERATELY, it is rebelling against the holy nature of God, having no fear of God by  breaking the laws he placed for his children and going down the path of destruction. Sin may be omission or commission, passive or active breaking the laws of God in our thoughts, words, attitude, motives and action. (Romans 3:9-20). It goes beyond the conventional hurting someone. A more depressing thought is that sin is found in each of us. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).  And the most depressing of all, we are all separated from God because of sin (Isaiah 59:1-2) and all of us here has HELL as the just payment for our sins (Romans 6:23).

The world says we deserve to be happy because we are innately good, the Word says we deserve hell because we are innately evil. Sin is not to be treated lightly. No wonder even Paul, the most influential Christian leader apart from Jesus, uttered: Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24)

And that is the question that goes for centuries, who will save us from not just from the evil of the world but from the evil within?