What is Sin and Does it Matter?
What is sin and how does it get sorted out? We grow up being told "don't do this" and "don't do that" and much of what we take on-board happens at an early age.
Our moral compass is passed down to us by our parents and can in fact be eroded over time, but that is almost a 'brainwashing' exercise to do that!
When it comes to sin, the Bible is full of it, but the simple explanation for sin is that it happens when we do something that misses the mark set for us by God.
One of the key elements about sin is that there is no hierarchy. In God's eyes, stealing a 1p sweet is just as much a sin as murdering someone. However, when it comes to our earthly laws and development of society, we take a different view as to the severity of one sin over another.
To understand from God's perspective; we all have the opportunity to follow Jesus and to be accepted into his kingdom and therefore, the best example is to say that we're all in training here on earth.
Not in God's Presence
Here's the thing! God will not and cannot exist in the presence of sin because He is holy. Therefore, He cannot have a heaven full of sinners, so we have to get ourselves sorted here on earth first before we go and join him, but we couldn't do this by ourselves.
A bit of background, Satan screwed things up for us in the beginning with Adam and Eve and that is the root of where sin came from. Click here to read the article on satan.
The whole point of Jesus coming and allowing himself to be sacrificed, was to put in place a mechanism that meant no matter what we had done or would do in the future, Jesus made a way that we could be forgiven of our our sins as long as we repented, did a 180 degree about-face and stopped sinning and only then could we appear spotless (free from sin) when we finally appeared before God.
That mechanism was/is called faith and believing what Jesus did for us on the Cross and that he is the Son of God, acknowledging that he died for our sins and rose again.
If you sin, not when!!!
We can fall short, still, even after we have been baptised, however, if we confess our sins, God is gracious to forgive us our sin. However, it says in Hebrews 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. So there's a caveat; we don't get a free pass once we become believers.
There is an expectation to NOT sin and to live a righteous life. If we trip up, is different than believing we can deliberately sin or indeed dimiss everything we have learned after we said we believed.
So as you can see, this is not meant to be complicated, but easy to do, and once you do, life changes - and we're here to help.
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