A Desperate Understanding

     Something I ask myself sometimes, and something you should as well, is whether or not I really understand what my sin means. As much as I can anyway. We have such a blasé way of thinking about sin most of the time and I think it's because we fail to understand the horror of it. If we understood the nature and scope of what we've done and what we are more, I think we would be all the more grateful to God and all the less likely to repeat our sins.

     As Christians we all know the answers to the questions that we all hear every Sunday. We know the story. God is the rightful ruler and creator and our sin is defiance against Him. Do we truly grasp that though? I don't think we do. God is more than just the rightful king. He -is- good. He is the perfect one, the only and every necessary thing. The definer of righteousness and holiness. The one to whom all things belong and because of whom all things exist. He is God! He is God and everything we do apart from His will is the most heinous crime one could conceive of. Our littlest lie, our most well hidden secret, our tiniest indiscretion is a filthy splotch of oil on the white canvas of His purity. Because of the all encompassing nature of His goodness even the small things show up like four hundred foot tall neon letters on a pitch black night. Our sin is horrible, but what makes it so awful is not the degree to which it damages ourselves or others but the fact that it so starkly contrasts against God's perfect purity.

     In an earthly sense, we see laws and moral judgments and we can see ways to balance and compare them and thus lessen their impact. In movies and books we have main characters that are bad men and women but they seem like the good guys because compared to the circumstances they are in or the people they are against they seem better. A thief can be a hero when he steals from the rich, or a murderer can be justified if he kills the unjust, or a con-artist can sleep better at night because he only swindles those who can afford to lose what he takes from them. We do not have that luxury with God. God will always set an unmatchable standard. We cannot justify our disobedience because He has every right to rule, we cannot sustain our lack of gratitude since we have no right to the gifts He provides, and we have no right to take the life of another when we do not even have ownership of our own selves. We are in the wrong and there is no way to rectify it or explain it away.

     My point through all of this is that we do not truly know that we are drowning and so we do not claw for the shore as we should. We need to remind ourselves of the weight of our sin so that we will always cling to our Savior! Are we men aboard a sinking ship who will leap for the hands of their rescuers beyond the rail? Are we hikers who claw at a branch to be saved from the pit? So often I think we are more like a drunk in an earthquake whose body swerves so readily we do not notice the movement of the earth beneath us. We are deserving of infinite hell, and yet God Himself has created for us a way of salvation. The one who is perfect and has no need of anyone or anything, came here in the form of tiny insignificant man and let us kill Him. To save us. To save the very same people who nailed his hands and feet to the cross and who would kill Him all over again if given half a chance. We should be falling at His feet thanking Him and praising His name for this unspeakably generous thing He has done for us. Yet we don't.

     I urge you to ask God for a greater understanding of your sin. Yes you will come to feel worse about yourself, but you will begin to feel a greater love for God than you have before. Your love for God will grow and your gratefulness will grow and you'll find that your worship is more honest, your praise more true and your reliance on Him more complete. We like to think we have a lot going for us, but it's only when we begin to understand just how bankrupt we are that we will begin to see how rich we are in Him.