A young Frenchman, Damien Tarel, 28, made the headlines recently for the wrong reason. He slapped their president, Emmanuel Macron during a visit to France’s Drome region. For that assault, he bagged a 4-month jail term. The interesting thing for us was the confession of the convict. He said that some days before the president visited, he had toyed with the idea of throwing an egg or a cream tart at him. The slap, however, was not premeditated.

Sin is hardly what happens at the spur of the moment. There is what we might call the process of sin. Whenever sin occurs, it is because a process has been followed. It is when the process is followed and the cycle completed that actual sin takes place.

That brings us to our key thought today. Sin is hardly what happens at the spur of the moment. There is what we might call the process of sin. Whenever sin occurs, it is because a process has been followed. It is when the process is followed and the cycle completed that actual sin takes place. Our text explains this better. It is particularly instructive that James used conception to show how sin is formed and birthed. A baby is not born at once. It is a long process, beginning from when a woman receives the male seed. Gestation takes place, and months later the baby is born. The seed of every sin is a thought or an idea. The Bible calls this lust or desire. When nothing is done to counter that seed it would eventually become sin. Note that from when a woman conceives till when the baby is born, a number of things could occur to terminate the pregnancy. In the same way, you don’t have to carry the seed of sin to term. The moment desires are rising within you, which are contrary to the will of God, you can do several things to abort them. You can pray to be delivered from temptation. You can talk to a brother or sister to watch with you. Damien had a desire to harass the president, because he did nothing about it he did worse than he imagined. The best time to conquer sin is at conception. Never wait to carry it to term.