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When children are baptised in the Church of England, their parents and godparents make three negative promises and three positive promises on behalf of the child. They promise to reject the devil and all rebellion against God, to renounce the deceit and corruption of evil, and to repent of the sins that separate us from God and neighbour. Then those negative promises are balanced by the three positive promises - to turn to Christ as Saviour, to submit to Christ as Lord, and to come to Christ, the way, the truth and the life.

These promises sum up a great deal of what Christianity is about, but they aren't easy to understand by those who have little or no church background. For instance, what's the difference between sin and evil? Is evil the same as sin only worse, in which case how do you decide what's sin and what's evil? Or are they different, and if so, how? And what's the difference between sin and rebellion against God, and how does the devil fit into it all?

Sin is that which prevents us being fully healthy. When we sin, we sell ourselves short and damage ourselves. Sometimes that can be a huge sin such as murder, which for your soul is like having a terrible accident, but it may more often be like a continuous infection which always keeps us from feeling 100 percent fit. The trouble is, when you have a constant low-grade infection you not only soon forget what it feels like to be really healthy, but you get so used to it that you soon hardly notice the infection and assume that you are experiencing the sort of health that everyone else experiences.

We all sin because that's part of being human. We're not gods, and so we inevitably fall short of the glory of God, the glory for which we were ordained. The glory of God isn't just words, but is a state of supreme physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being, similar to that which Buddhists call "Nirvana" and which Christians refer to as "Heaven" or "The Kingdom of God." It's the state which Christians eagerly anticipate after death, but which Jesus showed can be experienced now, on this earth. This is the state Jesus was referring to when he said, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48).

Since Jesus himself was in this state but experienced a great deal of trauma and suffering in both his life and his death, it would seem that the glory of God doesn't mean a suddenly idyllic life without any difficulties or any pain, but rather the ability to face and deal with those difficulties whilst remaining intact as a person. What sin does is the opposite of that. It may enable us to have a life which appears on the surface to be much more idyllic, but instead of enabling us to remain intact, it destroys us as people. Our integrity crumbles, our moral standards slip, and we become spiritually sick. When that happens, we're light years away from the kingdom of God.

Because we're human beings, we're all spiritually sick to some extent. We've all fallen short of the glory of God. But those who are aware of their spiritual sickness and their need for a physician are probably less sick than those who are completely oblivious of any spiritual need. And it's still true today that your spiritual state can be and is reflected in your physical state. It's well known now that stress produces all sorts of physical symptoms ranging from mild eczema to severe heart attacks and anything in between, but it's less easily accepted that the sickness of sin can produce equally severe symptoms. Jesus knew it, for when he said to a paralysed man, "Your sins are forgiven," the man was able to stand up and walk for the first time in many years (Matthew 9:2). And research has now shown that on the whole, churchgoers live longer, healthier, happier lives than non-churchgoers. Perhaps this is because they have an opportunity at each church service to dump their sins and receive forgiveness.

Sin keeps us out of God's presence. Of course, God is always present and always there for us, but sin forms a barrier which filters God's love and blessings. For some people that might be a featherweight filter, for others it's a filter so thick that they're unaware of God's existence and deny him. The thinner the barrier, the closer we come to God's glory and the more we're able to receive his love. For Christians, the greatest and most wonderful hope we have is that God forgives sin. When he died on the cross, Jesus died for our sins. That is, by dying without losing his integrity or his moral standards and therefore dying without any barrier at all between himself and God, somehow or other he completely removed the barrier from all of us for all time. Because of Jesus' action on the cross, forgiveness is always there for us, waiting for us to take hold of it and accept it. The more aware we become of our own state of sin, the more able we are to accept that forgiveness and benefit from it.

So in practical terms, what is sin? Is it telling lies or being nasty to other people? Well, those are certainly ways in which sin may be manifest, but it's much deeper than that. It's the constant unremitting desire to make life easy and more comfortable for ourselves. It's the refusal to face difficulties - especially difficulties in relationships - but rather the need to evade or avoid those difficulties, perhaps by blaming other people, or perhaps by ignoring them or side-stepping them. It's the refusal to take any risks but rather to remain where we are in the comfort zone. It's the refusal to accept short-term pain for long-term gain.

How can we even begin to change? That's where the forgiveness comes in. To accept forgiveness we need to repent. That is, to turn around towards God and allow his light to creep into our lives. This isn't a one-off process, but is continuous, for the more light which seeps into our innermost being, the more we gradually become aware of our own sin and our own need for forgiveness. That's why the church gives an opportunity for penitence in each service - because we need it!

Where does evil and the Devil fit into all this? Evil is sin which is allowed to continue unchecked and which is nurtured. So, for instance, gossip is often evil because it's easier to receive gossip and even to pass it on than it is to stand against it and challenge the gossiper. When sin is allowed to continue unchecked for a long time, evil becomes entrenched and begins to affect whole communities. Be warned, evil arises from sin and evil is catching.

The Devil is traditionally thought to have been an angel - Lucifer, the angel of light - who rebelled against God and hence fell into sin, and who is now considered by many to be God's opposite, the one who encourages and nurtures sin. Quite late in the Old Testament period the devil was personified - regarded as a person - just as Wisdom was personified. Some people today still regard the Devil as personified, others regard the devil as the representation of evil, and there are those who physically worship the devil just as we physically worship God.

Sin has a dragging effect. It constantly drags us down, so that we have to struggle against it. It's much easier to let things go than to face them, but every time we let them go we reinforce the barrier between us and God and fall a little further from his presence. How can we change? Lent is a time for reflecting on our lives and on our relationship with God. The Church tries to offer a time for stepping back, and that stepping back begins with Ash Wednesday. If you're aware of sin in your life, and aware of how it spoils your relationship with God, I invite you to repent tonight. To ask for and receive God's forgiveness and turn to him. As a physical sign of this you might like to receive ash on your forehead when you come up to the altar (for communion).

The ash signifies repentance and a new start - and be aware that God is waiting to shower you with his love and his blessings, if only you allow the barrier between you and him to go. And when you experience his love and blessings, then you begin to experience for yourself his glory and the kingdom of heaven. And that's when you really begin to understand those baptism promises.