How much do you think you sin? Do you think you sin
everyday? How many times a day? One, two, five times?
What constitutes as sin? Overindulging on food? Cheating on
a girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse? Not reading your Bible? Saying “JESUS!” when
you’re angry? Smiling and laughing at someone’s joke when in your mind, you’re
really criticizing their weird laugh and poor storytelling abilities?
What makes sin bad? Breaking God’s law? Breaking our own
moral standards? Someone getting hurt?
What does God think about all our sins? Does He look at us
and want to send fire down to burn us up into ashes? Or can He not even see our
evil acts at all because Jesus already won that case in the courtroom? Maybe He
cries? Or just shakes His head with disappointment?
Back to you. Do you ever go to bed at night thinking, “Today
was a pretty good day, I didn’t do
anything really bad today (or at least bad enough to really matter)”? Do you ever
go a day without sinning?
I ask all these questions, because I don’t think I’m the
only one who thinks these things sometimes. I was reading When Helping Hurts
the other night, and the Lord stabbed my heart and said, “Rachel, you were
about to go to bed tonight thinking you lived today perfectly/without a
fault/sinless. What made you think that? Do you think you live some days as
holy?”
Now I know what you’re thinking, is she questioning her
faith? Does she know Jesus dying on the cross wiped away all her sins and now
God looks at her as holy? Is Rachel becoming all legalistic about her sins?
I promise I’m not. But…
I think God just wanted to remind me that just because
Jesus’ paid for my sins and the burnt offering of His body counted in the place
of the burning of my sinful body, does not mean that this fleshly, sinful body
doesn’t do wrong in the eyes of the Lord. I still open up myself to evil and in
turn grieve the Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). I sometimes invite the kingdom of
darkness/evil instead of the kingdom of God. How? Pride. Lust. Slander. Anger.
Greed.
God, Your grace is abounding. Lord, I need it everyday,
every moment. There is not a day/minute/hour that I don’t need You Lord to look
at me with grace. Jesus you died so we
could live a holy life from God’s point of view, not a holy life from our point
of view. I believe you remind us of our sin so that we love you more and
know that we need your grace now. Now. And even now.
Let’s not forget what our Father thinks about sin (Mark
9:42-48). And let’s not ever forget that we are sinful beings in need of grace
everyday. What would happen if we lost sight of our need for a savior and
thought we could make it on our own in this world? All of us trying to be gods
of our own little kingdoms. Can you imagine 7 billion little gods running
around this world? I choose to live in God’s kingdom under the authority of the
one and only King, Jesus.
Let’s choose to be objects of humility so we can fully
receive God’s grace (Proverbs 3:34, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5-6).