A Blank Slate (1 Jn. 3)
When one becomes a Christian, he or she is no tabula rasa . I write this as I wait in anticipation for my first grandchild to be born. Brantley Mark will be here soon, less than a month, and his brand new life will begin. People often believe that children come as blank slates waiting for the imprinting on their lives that will determine who or what they will become. In some ways, they do. Children learn from their parents, the world around them, society . . . each one has a normal that varies from all other normals. However, each child comes already broken in the sense that he/she is born a sinner, inheriting Adam’s sin upon birth. There has never been a perfect child born who is free from rebellion before Jesus was born, otherwise, mankind wouldn’t have needed Jesus to save us from our sin. Think about it. Even the first children born to man had issues. Cain killed Abel because “his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous” (1 Jn. 3:12). One of the first babies born to m