Sin is one of the most talked about subjects in Christianity. In our walk with God, we understand that it is something to avoid, something to overcome and something that puts our eternal future with God in danger. Throughout God’s Word, it is very easy to gain knowledge about it.
There was a season where I received several revelations for things in the Bible that looked pretty straight forward. I soon discovered that the Lord did not want me to just read His Word, He wanted me understand His heart behind it. One of these revelations had an enormous affect on the way I see sin. Let’s look at these few Scriptures:
1 John 1:8 – If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
Isaiah 1:18 – “Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like wool.
John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 1:12 – Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God
Luke 13:34 – “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.
Just from these few Scriptures, we can see God’s heart and the way He feels about sin:
- He wants us to be honest about our sinful condition.
- He wants to forgive our sins and purify us.
- He was willing to lay everything on the line so we could be reunited with Him.
- He has a desire for us to believe in Jesus Christ and be called children of God.
- He sees sin as a dangerous divider and reached out in love, yet His people were not willing to listen.
The revelation I received testified of God’s strong desire to protect us from the very thing that separates us from Him. He has an unconditional love towards His children, yet sin came and threatened to steal His most prized possession – us. If we look at this rule of thumb, that pure cannot mix with impure, we understand that sin cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. There is a misconception that God loves throwing people into hell. Through the Bible we learn that there is great rejoicing in heaven if even just one sinner gets saved. God is not impersonal. He feels love and anger just like we do. We can cancel the misconception and be a 1000% sure that God does not love throwing people into hell. Those who died without Christ are forever lost. We can dig into history and see that they were also once formed in the womb with the Lord waiting patiently for them to see the truth. Unfortunately, just like Luke 13, they were not willing.
What would be the greatest motivator for overcoming sin? God’s love. When we step into an intimate relationship with our Creator, we begin to love what He loves and hate what He hates. Sin is like an illness, yet, God gave us the power to overcome it. We are above it and not underneath it. We have to love what’s good, not what feel’s good. If a certain action causes heartache in the heart of your Creator, then it has to do the same in yours.
I would like to close this blog off by pointing out the optimism that God shows in Isaiah 1:18. He could have told us that He will forgive us if we go to Him, but He went above and beyond. He used well known things to explain how pure we will be after He takes away all signs of filth to dress us in a robe of righteousness. His desire to purify us is evident. Do you hate sin as much as God does?