How BIG is our SIN?
How BIG is our SIN?
James 2:10
“For whoever keeps the entire law, yet fails in one point, is guilty of breaking it all.”
Sometimes I believe that it is very difficult for us to understand just how big our sin problem is. Most of us, including myself, go through the day thinking that if we haven’t robbed a bank or murdered someone then we have had a pretty good day of not sinning, but is that actually the case? I find myself often asking myself how much have I sinned during the day? This is usually a scary question to ask because of the answers that God gives me in my mind.
But let’s be serious here. If we are going to take what God says here in James, that if we ‘fail in one point, (we are) guilty of breaking it all.” What does this mean for us? Well, I believe this means that we all break God’s laws a lot more than we actually realize. This is as convicting to me as anyone, because I know the thoughts that run through my mind during the day and all of the ways that I sin against God without even giving it a second thought, just because it has become “natural” (scary thought) for me.
If we just look at what Jesus said was the most important commands, we see that in Matthew 22:37 that he says “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. And the second is like this. Love your neighbor as yourself.” So we can basically say that to obey this we need to love God with all we have, and love people with all we have. WOW!!! I know I am not good at doing that all the time. How often have I done things for my own selfish gain and not even thought about God? How many times have I gone to church to worship God and never thought once about him, but instead day dreamed the whole time? How many times have I failed to actually have a devotion time with Him and either not done it, or again day dreamed and simply read? But that’s just the loving God part. What about loving people? How many times have I got frustrated with people? Either while driving, in a store, on the phone, or at work? How many times have I had mean thoughts about people during the day? How many times have I done things so that they work out in my favor instead of thinking of their best interest instead of mine? WOW!!! When we start to look at things this way, the sins really start to add up.
I believe we sin a lot more than we actually realize and this really hurts us a lot more than we realize. I believe it hurts us in two ways. First we don’t realize ways in which we have hurt God, because that is ultimately what we are doing when we sin. Imagine getting cussed out by a friend or family member on the phone and then they hang up on you, then at the end of the day they call back and apologize from hanging up on you and they fail to mention anything about the way they talked to you. Do you think this is how God may feel when we come to Him at the end of the day and ask for forgiveness of our sins and because we don’t realize how much we sin we only mention 2 out 2,000 sins?
But I believe this also hurts us because we take away from the power and beauty of the Cross and Resurrection when we take sin lightly. God loved us to the point that he was willing to give His own Son to be made human, die a brutal death, and be physically raised from the dead for our sins, and so that we can have the promise of living forever with him. Now, when we simply think that committing murder or stealing are sins, then we rob God of what he did for us on the Cross. He died for every lie, evil thought, lustful thought, hatred in your heart, and a million other sins that we fail to pick up on.