The believer is a new creation. You belong to a holy generation, a peculiar people. The Spirit of God lives in you, and in every way you stand far removed from the natural man. But for all that, Christian, you are still a sinner.

You are a sinner because of your flawed nature, and you will remain one until your last breath on earth. The black fingers of sin leave their smudges on your fairest robes. Sin mars your repentance before the great Potter has even finished shaping it on the wheel. Selfishness defiles your tears. Unbelief tampers with your faith. The very best thing you ever did, apart from the merit of Jesus, only swelled the number of your sins. When you've felt most pure in your own eyes, remember: like the heavens, you are not pure in God's sight. He charged his angels with folly—how much more must he charge us with it, even in our most angelic frames of mind!

That song that thrills toward heaven, trying to match the seraphic strains? It still carries human discord. That prayer that moves the arm of God? It's still a bruised and battered prayer. It only moves God's arm because the sinless One, the great Mediator, stepped in to remove the sin from our supplication. Take the most golden faith, the purest sanctification any Christian has ever achieved on earth—it still has so much alloy mixed in that, by itself, it's only worthy of the flames.

Every night when you look in the mirror, you see a sinner staring back. You must confess: "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."

Oh, how precious the blood of Christ to such hearts as ours! What a priceless gift is his perfect righteousness! And how bright the hope of perfect holiness hereafter! Even now, though sin dwells in us, its power is broken. It has no dominion. It's a broken-backed snake. Yes, we are in bitter conflict with it, but we fight a vanquished foe. Just a little while longer, and we shall enter victoriously into the city where nothing defiles.