December 30

Sin is “acting contrary to the will of God”. It comes from an archery term to miss the bull’s eye. I think we have taken that term a little too far. Outside the bull’s eye are several more concentric circles, (five by most that I saw). I think we have assigned certain sins to certain circles. What I mean is that some sins are acceptable or nearly acceptable. They are understandable, only human, and fall under the category of, “hey I’m not perfect”, or “everybody…”. My friend Wendell once said that the only hate that is completely allowed in the church is hating your ex. WOW! That’s a stinger! How about hating Pres. Obama? Acceptable? Cheating on your taxes? Am I getting warm? There are things that we “excuse” that cause us death! The things we say about one another and to one another causes so much pain, bondage and death, yet although we would say it is wrong to gossip or be critically judgmental, we may not rank it with getting drunk. In fact, I will wager that we may have talked behind someone’s back critically or gossiped about them doing something like getting drunk (or anything out of the will of God) to others not realizing that in doing so we too were “sinning”.

We need to reexamine what our definition of sin has become and bring it back into line with God’s definition. While getting drunk may ruin many things, backbiting WILL bring death to MANY. I am not advocating getting drunk – do NOT be drunk but be filled with the Spirit! What I am saying is that we have “pet” sins that we think of readily like drinking, drugging, sexing and especially homosexuality. While all these are definitely acting contrary to the will of God, so is cowardice and fear, resentment and judgmentalism and the like.

The book of 1st John is about LOVE! God IS love! I would encourage you to re-read it if necessary and discern what it is saying about God and about us, what His will is for us. Then go back to 1 Cor. 13 and read what love is again, what it does, what it looks like. Oh church, to be rooted and grounded in this love, nothing would stop us!

Psalm 133 (NIV84) —1 How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!... For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.