What is sin?

Most of us have the inclination that deep down, we are genuinely good people. I mean, think about something that you are embarrassed that you did, or ashamed of. We tend to regard our behaviour that we don't like as a mistake. We think that if we could just have a "do-over" then we would do it differently. We think that us at our worst is not the "real me."

We can honestly not believe that we are as messed up as we are. We hate other people and we wish the worst for them. We hate God and reject his path for us.

"Whoa. Hate God? No way." Right? Yes, we do. Everyday. And it is only by the grace of God that he overlooks our rebellion and hate that we have for Him and His creation.

We rebel against God. We do not "make mistakes." We rebel a thousand times before breakfast and don't even know it. Adam and Eve's disobedience was not a "slip up." It was sin. We sin. And it is the same as Satan and his demons storming the gates of heaven. We want to dethrone God. We, at our worst, want God dead. We wish we could put Him in the ditch and establish ourselves as ruler.

"I'm only human." That's true and it's no joke. It's a condemnation. It's not funny to mock God, despise His Word, and indulge ourselves getting fat on our desires, hogging our time, our money, our words, our thoughts. "It's mine." We're entitled to a little something for ourselves, right? We get drunk our entitlement and live in a state of stupor, we engorge ourselves on the shiny things of this world, we stagger up to God's altar and vomit up his creation which we've consumed and corrupted. We're no longer simply in the world. We are the world. It's no longer us and them. We're all the same. What distinguishes the church from the world? Nothing? What distinguishes you from those in the world?

Christ.

Only Christ. His life. His Cross. His resurrection.

If we don't take sin seriously, we have nothing we need to be rescued from. Sin is serious to God. It makes the promise of our salvation even more amazing. We don't properly view our sin, but God does and freely offers us life, hope, and forgiveness in spite of ourselves.

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." I Cor 5:21

Easter Triumph, Easter joy!
This alone can sin destroy;
From sin's power, Lord, set us free.
Newborn souls in You to be.
Alleluia!