When God looked down and saw man's sinful condition, He saw a creation unable to help itself. So God did for man what man could not do for himself; He sent us His Son. "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." {Luke 19:10} This was Christ's mission while He was on this earth. Allow Jesus to give His own invitation. "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." {Matthew 11:28-30} God implores us to come to Him for redemption from sin's bondage. We all need this redemption.

What exactly did Christ offer? What our Lord and His Father saw were men in bondage to sin, much as His people long ago were under the bondage of Egyptian slavery. Only sin's bondage is much more serious! "Jesus answered them, Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. {John 8:34} Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?" {Romans 6:16} Simply defined, sin is transgressing against God's law and omitting the things He commanded us to do (1 John 3:4; James 4:17). Christ brought us a two-fold offer -- freedom from sin's burden and guilt, and freedom from sin itself and the power it has over us.

Whatever you or I may do, if it can be classified as sin, first and foremost, it is sin against God -- and He must forgive. "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." {Hebrews 8:12} Sin is man's greatest problem, and God's forgiveness is, at the same time, His most wonderful, free gift to mankind.

It is only through Christ that man can be freed from this terrible bondage in which he finds himself. "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" {Romans 6:1,2} In order to experience this freedom, we must die to sin. But how, you may ask, does one die to sin? "Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin." {Romans 6:3-7} Without Christ's blood, man cannot be released from sin, the enemy of his soul. To gain access to Christ's blood, one must go back to His death.

"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." {Ephesians 1:7} Through baptism, we contact Christ's blood and achieve power over sin as He, through resurrection, achieved power over death. How so? We die to sin and are buried in water; we arise to walk in newness of life. By following the divine blueprint, we are able to put our sins to death. The world may debate and rage about whether or not we need baptism, but it is united on our need for Christ's blood. If we desire to have that blood cleanse our sin-stained souls, we must contact it in His way, and not our own. All men are free to choose. God provided, for the taking, a way out of sin's terrible bondage. We must trust, believe, and obey His word. It comes down to how badly we desire freedom from sin's terrible pull on our souls. God will not force the issue -- you must make the call!