How do you truly feel about sin?
This is a really, really hard subject for all of us, I think. All my life I heard stories of people who excused deeds that clearly went against God’s prescribed boundaries of right and wrong, justifying them through the lens of spirituality or gray area when in fact, there was none. The older I get, the more distinctly I see how easy it is to play in the gray, to justify things because of this one legal loophole, this one tiny technicality…
The struggle with how we relate to sin is not new to modern Christianity. Way back in the Garden of Eden, the very fall of mankind was precipitated by the gray area around defying Yahweh: “Did God really say…?” And just like that, with a shred of gray introduced, Eve and Adam found a place to dance. Thus began our perpetual sin-nature waltz with trying to have our cake and eat it, too…trying to keep things holy enough and still remain in the light of God’s favor.
Throughout my life, I’ve seen this play out personally and in those around me. There’s perhaps no temptation more real than walking that knife’s edge of getting what I want and trying to give what I know God demands of me. At the same time, I watch others around me do the same, all of us excusing the small things, staking our vindication in minor nuances of Scripture so we can say “God didn’t mean it that seriously, that harshly, what He really meant was…”
But no, most of the time He really did mean it like that. Exactly that seriously. Precisely that harshly. And the attitude of trying to twist and diminish the gravitas of the sin to make our inner sinner feel better does not help anyone in the end. In fact, it sets us up for a greater fall down the road.
In the opening verses of Psalm 38, I truly think the Psalmist nails the proper outlook on sin, as evocatively painful as it may be. Here, no corners are cut, no concessions made. In this psalm “for a remembrance”, David lays bare a bone-deep, visceral agony that comes from having his sins brought to light before Yahweh. He speaks of festering wounds and groaning hearts, of numbness and terrified burdens due to his iniquities. The very core of his bones is lacking because of his sins.
Passages like this can be tough to read because they bring us face-to-face with a response to sin that this fallen world constantly tries to pivot us away from. When a darkened view cajoles the sinner to revel in their actions, calling it liberation, freedom, satisfaction, even something we deserve to indulge in, the words of our ancestor David beckon the soul to earnest repentance; to seeing their iniquities, their wrong doings, their sins for what they are: an actual burden that causes affliction. Something that makes God indignant and from which we can’t hide, no matter how much we try to justify what we’ve done.
Now is not the time to fall prey to the temptation of indulgence. We need to pray for clear, wide-open eyes that see sin for what it is, and hearts and minds with the fortitude to turn away from those things and keep the commands and decrees of God first. Now more than ever, our strength to stick close to God, honoring and obeying His directions and decrees, is essential for both our prosperity and the advancement of the Truth. Anything less, and we are heaping a burden on ourselves and setting a poor example that threatens to lead others down the same path—a path that will end only in festering wounds, groaning hearts, mourning clothes and backs bent with sorrow.
Instead, let’s shrug off the weight of sin by embracing the truth of what it is, and avoiding it with all our might. This is the way to not only a truly fulfilling life, but a blessed one—one where our dance with the enemy changes to a beautiful and enduring waltz with God.
