Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin.
Ezekiel 18:30

There’s a subtle distinction displayed here between transgression and iniquity.

To “transgress” means to go beyond the boundaries, to trespass into forbidden territory. Transgression is simply disobedience to God’s Law.
 
Iniquity is perversion: the word literally means “something that’s supposed to be straight but has become twisted.” 

When we persist in transgression, it becomes iniquity.  When we insist on disobeying God’s Laws, we convince ourselves that sinful behavior is acceptable and normal, and we have no intention of abandoning it. Our hearts become twisted and our thinking becomes perverted. We are unable to think clearly about right and wrong or discern between good and evil.

Iniquity leads to ruin. It ruins my life, my family, and my community. World History provides countless examples of iniquity ruining entire cultures and leading to the downfall of nations.

God lovingly calls us to abandon our transgressions, to return to doing things God’s clean, righteous way, before the transgressions become habitual and turn into iniquity.

The world, the flesh and the devil, that unholy alliance of the enemies of my soul, lie and deceive, telling me that what God has forbidden is perfectly normal, acceptable behavior. They insist that theft, adultery, cruelty, lustful covetousness and even murder are okay because, after all, “everybody does it.”

Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.
Psalm 120:2

Lord God, help me to repent and return to Your way of doing things. Keep me from being deceived into iniquity by the devil, by the world around me, or even by my own feelings, desires and twisted reasoning. Deliver me for Jesus’ sake from transgression, before I ruin myself, my family, and my nation! Amen.

Pastor Dan Giles