I feel as though when it comes to by quiet times, I retain more when I "research", or in other words, go by a theme. Something that I have questions about. I spend time looking through my concordance, or searching via internet. Sometimes I just need a refresher to clarify some things, so I know of the references already.
So lately, I've been really thinking a lot about Sin.
The dictionary definition of Sin is transgression of divine law, ANY act regarded as such a transgression, especially a willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle.
In simpler terms, Sin is anything that separates us from Christ. Something that goes against the guidelines that He has established.
So, what are some things that are against God's guidelines? Let's use the Ten Commandments for example.
1. Have no other gods before me
2. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below (idolatry, which ultimately can be anything that we put before Christ)
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord (any form of oh my God, Jesus!, you get the idea)
4. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy (I'm not really clear as to when the Sabbath is supposed to be in the day of the week. But it is a day of rest. Do you take a day out of the week to rest?)
5. Honor your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. (self explanatory)
6. You shall not murder (later on, the Bible says that if you hate someone, you are already held guilty of their murder)
7. You shall not commit adultery (the Bible also says that if you even look at a women (or man) with lust in your heart, you are already guilty of committing adultery)
8. You shall not steal
9. You shall not lie
10. You shall not covet.
These are just ten, but they are the ones that are most commonly used, that we really don't even think about. I'll come back to this later.
Within the past week or so, North Carolina established a rule that homosexuals cannot get married. I'm not entirely sure of the full details, but I know enough that it created an interesting state of controversy. The next day, President Obama spoke on his support for homosexuality and that it was a generational thing. That it is considered offensive at the time, but later on it would evolve into acceptance. That made a LOT of people angry, well, Christians. Ever since then, people have been posting statuses, videos, blogs, commenting on posts, stating about how wrong it was. I have a friend that is homosexual, and he has had people come up to him saying that he was going to go to hell for being gay and the like.
The way that I have seen Christians respond to this situation has made me rather... angry.
Why was I angry? Because things like this pulls people away. I had to be intentional in pursuing relationships with people that do not fully have a relationship with Christ, and this frequently come up. Statistically, 66% of people that leave a church (or church in general) is because of an offense. Now some portion it can be a misguiding, people have not fully understood what it is like to be given into complete submission under God, but at the same time, offenses can come from people in the church that are literally being flat out rude. Those that justify their own sin and make it seem as though someone else's sin is magnitudes worse.
We are taught in church, Romans 3:23, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" and Romans 3:10 "There is none righteous, no, not one". However, we treat certain issues as though we are better because we haven't done "that" thing. But in turn, we are committing sin at that very moment. The sin that can send us directly to hell. As we go back to the ten commandments. I cannot say that there is a single person who have not violated any one of the ten commandments more than once. I can probably say that idolatry is the most common. We ALL have things that we have put before God at one point or another. Even now. Then there's the issue of Pride... which EVERYONE deals with regularly. The root of every other sin is a pride issue.
We tend to go on and on about how there is no level of sin. The wages of sin (period) is death. We ALL deserve Hell. So why do we treat sins like fornication, abortion, homosexuality, and murder differently from sins like lying, lust, pride, gossip, and talking badly about someone? As though we have a "right" to commit those sins because we think that they don't hurt anyone? Is that really true? Every sin issue that we have today started from a lie. Many families are broken because of lusts. Statistically, more people are affected by what we consider the "little" sins than the ones that we take to be so "bad". So why do we fight against abortion and homosexuality so much?
I thought about this not because I feel as though abortion and homosexuality should be something that we take lightly. I wrote this because, we have to take our sin, just as seriously. I want to get to the point in my life where every lie that I happen to say tears me apart. When I lust, I want to feel guilty. When I gossip, I want to plead for forgiveness. There is no such thing as big sins or little sins. I think we have to start acting like it.
-Quayla
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