Knowing where to start from is usually the best place to go. Identifying what you are up against in any situation is always best.
Putting labels on things are good, but sometimes we need to go deeper and see what things are what they really are. We need to define sin. What is it?
When God was talking to Adam and Eve and giving them the tour of the Garden and the do’s and don’t’s. It was then that Adam was given a ‘choice’ of ‘Life’ and the ‘knowledge of good and evil’. Now if it was me, why would anyone choose anything but life. But the real story is the either or thing. Adam and Eve chose for themselves to be kings(Idol) of their own domain, and take the chance of how things would turn out. This is the definition of Idolatry. Choosing a ‘substitute’ object other than God is the definition of Idolatry. It would be the same as creating an object out of wood or stone, to worship as ‘their’ god. They were substituting God with themselves. This was ‘the Sin’.
Anything that comes from the acting out of this ‘Sin’, is considered sins or wrongdoings. This is our condition that we are in as of today and the past.
Luke 1:77 To give to His people the knowledge of salvation
By the forgiveness of their sins,… God is telling us that our ‘actions’ from ‘Sin’ are being forgiven. This is first step from God in clearing the road of Sin and Sins from the world. God gives mankind a ‘second’ or ‘New’ Creation to begin again in the realm of “Life” as God had intended.
Just as the first step, God would take care of the second thing,too. Jesus would change things on the first one too. Jesus would soon announce that the death and resurrection of Life. This is the ‘action’ that God took to cancel out the death of Sin and it’s action. Jesus Christ being the ‘Messiah’ was ‘saving’ mankind from ‘Sin’ by ‘being’ the example of ‘New Creation’ as being Holy.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
This verse is the next step in our journey of ‘being in the will of God’, It is the ‘changing’ of our mind to secure this transformation. It is not by the will of our flesh, but of the spirit of God that now guides us in our live to attain the ‘Tree of Life’.
The Eternal Purpose 