A number of years ago when I was pastoring my first church in suburban Philadelphia, I recruited some teens to help me with some clean up of the church property. The facility sat on a 12 acre tract of land of which 1/3 was wooded. Meandering through this wooded section was a small stream. One summer day I had noticed a lot of debris in the stream and thus the need for a "clean up" day. In the process of cleaning out the stream, a middle school student and I stumbled across a dead cat. It was very apparent that this cat had been dead for a quite some time. So fighting waves of nausea, we removed the body of the cat and bagged it as quickly as we could. It was down right disgusting (in fact, I am getting a little queasy just thinking about it now!).As disgusting as that cat was in our sight back then -- our sin is so much more disgusting in God's sight. As I mentioned in my last posting, God sees sin as a breaking of his law and a missing of the mark he has established for us. Now that would be bad enough ... but there is more!
In addition, God also sees our sin as a defiant rebellion against his authority. A frequent New Testament word (anomia) for sin carries the idea of "lawlessness" (1 John 3:4) or "without law or restraint" (Matt. 24:12). The Hebrew word pesha (often used in the Old Testament for sin) includes the idea of rebellion (Job 34:37; Exodus 23:2; 34:7; Joshua 24:19). The prophet Isaiah captured this idea of sin as rebellion when he wrote, "All we like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned to his OWN way (vs. God's way)" (53:6). In effect, whenever we sin we are rebelling against God's rightful authority over us.
One final thought about God's view of sin. Sin is a willful twisting or distorting of the law of God. The Hebrew Old Testament word awon which is also used to refer to our sin literally means "to bend, twist, distort" (See Job 33:27; Eccl. 1:15). If you stop to think about this - isn't this what we often do when we sin? We seek to rationalize our sin and so we twist, bend and distort God's law so that we can justify ourselves! Sad, but true!
Bottom line, sin is UGLY! If we are ever going to grow in our faith and become increasingly like Jesus Christ, we MUST learn to see sin as God does! Let me suggest you soon set some time aside to read Psalm 51. These words were written by King David after he was confronted by Nathan the prophet concerning his sin of adultery with Bathsheba. As you read these words, ask God to reveal to you any sin you have not confessed to him. And as you confess any sin, remember the promise of 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." Now that is something to be THANKFUL for!
Thanks for stopping by . . .
pj
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