The Thing About Sin...

The other day I posted a link on my Facebook site to an article about sin. Of course, people don't comment on articles like that, but are more than ready to "Click like if you believe God still performs miracles!" or "Click Like if you want to start a Facebook revival" or "Click like if Jesus is your Savior!" But sin? The wages of sin? What is sin? Nope, nobody wants any part of that. Not the hard stuff. Just the easy, "click like" stuff.

What is ironic is that many of those same people also have statuses that proclaim or defend their favorite sin. Oh it's not called a sin. These days it seems most feel they can pick and choose what is sin, and what isn't. What God detests (like "judging" others) and what God just winks at or lets slide.

I serve the God as revealed in the Bible. He gave us everything we need to know about Him there, and He will never contradict Himself. We cannot say that God tells us that something we do is ok, if He has already declared it sin in His Word.

God doesn't wink at sin. He takes it so seriously that He came to us in human form, humbly as a helpless baby, for the purpose taking our stripes, bearing the torture that is meant for us sinners, and being killed in the most inhumane way possible, to overcome the sin that His creation chose. No...He doesn't take sin light-heartedly. There is nothing more serious, nothing more deadly, than sin.

And we don't get to pick and choose what is sin, and what isn't. He defined it. He declared it. He tells us exactly what it is, what to avoid, how not to live. We can't pick and choose. Sin is sin. A lie or a murder or adultery or coveting your neighbor's possessions. All sin, all deadly, all equally sin.

If Christ is your Savior, or if "it's not religion, it's a relationship"...how well do you know Him? How close is a "relationship" with this Savior you declare if you aren't reading His Word, His love letter, His instruction manual, His revelation of His very Self to us? Is it just a status on Facebook? Or is it a RELATIONSHIP? Is it a status or a lifestyle? Is this the God you serve when you agree with what He says, or because He is the great I Am? Are you a Christian only when it doesn't interfere with your own choice to sin? Did that last question make you uncomfortable?

We are all sinners. We all make choices to sin. The difference between a "status line Christian" and a true servant of Christ is repentance. True repentance involves turning away from the things that God warns us against in His Word to us, not just apologies and continuing in our sin. There is no repentance - required for forgiveness to those who have chosen to follow Christ - if there is no change.

Praise God that He fills us with joy as we repent and grow in Him, and turn away from our own sin. He carries us when we fail, and fills us with renewed thirst for a sinless life. He picks us up when we fall, and His very Spirit resides within us to show us the right roads to follow, the right choices to make. Jesus didn't leave us comfortless. There is salvation in none other than Christ Himself, who took our penalty for sin, for the sins of the whole world, upon Himself. Covered with our sin, His own Father could not look upon His Son as He cried on the cross, "Why hast thou forsaken me?"...

We can choose to sin, or we can choose to give lip service to an unknown Jesus. He doesn't change the rules, not for any of us. But He has loved us enough that He provides a way out, and a way Home. We just have to follow...Him.