'Possum's, 'Coon's and Sin

My mom lives in the country in East Tennessee.  She has a garden, chickens, etc. and occasionally has a visitor or two.  She uses a trap to catch opossums and raccoons that steal her veggies and eggs, but she don't kill them, she takes them a few miles away and releases them safely. Once they go into the trap and the door closes, they are stuck. Their only hope is for someone to free them. We usually take them across the river away from town and free them there. Mom always wants to make sure it was at a place where they can live comfortably.  Sometimes when the trap door opens, the critter races away. Yet, I have always found it interesting that sometimes when you open the door of the trap, the critter doesn't leave, it just stays put out of fear.        This is how it is with sin. Once we sin, there is no way humanly possible to escape it. It is like a trap. Once it has you, you are trapped. Notice what Jesus said: "Jesus answered them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin' " (Jn 8:34). Sin is like a trap. Once it has you, you become a sinner and there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot "un-sin." You become tainted, trapped, enslaved. It simply is not humanly possible to free yourself from slavery to sin. However, it is divinely possible for you to be freed from sin. Notice what Jesus also says: "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed" (Jn 8:36). The only way to be free indeed, or truly free, is for Jesus himself to free you. Jesus died on the cross for your sins offering forgiveness (Eph 1:7). In dying on the cross, he opened the door so that you can escape and be free from sin. How do you go through the open door to be free? Keeping in mind that Jesus is the door (Jn 10:9), here is what we do. We accept and confess our faith in Jesus as our risen Lord (Rom 10:9), and we repent and are baptized for forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). When we are baptized into the water, we are baptized into the death of Christ and have been raised with him to walk in newness of life (Rom 6:3-5). The Bible says that when this happens, "our old self was crucified with Him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin" (Rom 6:6). So, when we submit ourselves to Christ as our Lord and master, we go through the door he opened for us at the cross. We become free from sin and now belong to him. Don't be like the timid, scared opossum or raccoon that never leaves the trap.  Go through the door that Jesus is, and has opened for you to freedom!   "But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life" (Rom 6:22).