"Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous... He that commiteth sin is of the devil..." (1 John 3:7) When it comes to righteousness. It is either black or white. IN the same vein, when it has to do with sin, it is either yes or no. Something is either a sin or it is not. Our lifestyle is either good or evil. There is no gray area. There is no blurred lines, no sketchy edges. Everything we do will always fall under either of two broads categories: "good" or "bad". There is no "others" category. It is either right or wrong. Sometimes this is difficult to accept because we live in a world that believes in compromise and relativism. We subject everything to reason till we can arguably prove the rightness in every wrong. Most times we can even find scriptural references to support our wrong doing. The concept of relativism has so much permeated our society that we sometimes assume that God sees things in the same way. But where God is concerned, there are only absolutes. There is no partial sin or partial goodness. Everything is pointblank. Black or White! .
The early church was equally plagued with the same malady eating up our generation today. People thought that they could do certain things and get away with it. At a time, a certain man was having sex with his stepmother and still coming to church as a full believer (1 Cor 5:1). Nobody could question him. The lines between right and wrong was getting blurred. To them right or wrong is only relative. But John wrote to remind the church that the word of God is absolute. The Bible says, let no man deceive you. Don't anybody give you false impressions. Don't allow people to confuse you with theories and philosophies. It is as simple as daylight. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, but he that commiteth sin is of the devil. It is that simple. You cannot claim to be a child of God and live in sin. You have to practise righteousness.