All have sinned, but no one is forced to continue

Sin can be defined as any difference between you and God. To sin is to “come short of the glory of God” by thinking, feeling, or acting differently than how God would in your place, as far as you understand.¹

People become susceptible to temptation to sin by misjudging the cost and benefit of what they could think, feel, or do. Temptation comes through understating the cost and overstating the benefit of anything that is actually less than the best. Consequently, the most powerful way to stop sinning is through exercising greater faith and honesty in choosing what you perceive to be best and learning more about the actual cost and benefit of the choices available to you. By definition, each sin carries a benefit less than its cost, and every sin shares the consequences of all disobedience. The penalties of sin are physical death, which results in the end of your mortal life, spiritual death, which results in your alienation from God here and hereafter, and hell, which consists of your eternal misery.

We begin our lives involuntarily forgiven from so-called original sin through the sacrifice of Christ,² having not yet developed the capacity to make moral judgments. All able-minded children reach the point where they have enough discernment to choose,³ and, unfortunately, all but Jesus choose to disobey God.⁴

While “all have sinned” (Romans 5:12), there is a difference between having sinned in the past and choosing to sin in the future. Although your past sins make it impossible for you to replicate Jesus’ sinlessness from birth, no matter who you are or what you have done until now, you can begin to replicate his example from this point on.⁵

All people have the opportunity to choose to obey God and, through doing so, receive forgiveness of their past sins.⁵⁰³ There isn’t a person so wicked that they are beyond God’s ability to lead them to something better. Anyone who turns to him with all their might, mind, and strength will be led by God toward eternal life.