Sin, a Little Thing?

"Sin, a little thing? It girded the Redeemer's head with thorns, and pierced His heart! It made Him suffer anguish, bitterness, and woe. Could you weigh the least sin in the scales of eternity, you would fly from it as from a serpent, and abhor the least appearance of evil. Look upon all sin as that which crucified the Savior, and you will see it to be 'exceedingly sinful.'" ~ Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, morning March 11.

Surrounded by sin, continually committing them, and being in a world that only cares about sin when they fear punishment means that Christians can start to become familiar with it, and by degrees we begin to regard sin as less than what it is--an affront to a holy, sinless God. We all do this, myself included. It's easy to think of sin in relative, worldly terms, and in that way it does not look so bad. The "white lie," the flirtation with lust, the creeping bitterness, the slowly building disinterest, the "small" bouts with impatience, the covetous desires, the racist thoughts we "never act on," or any other sin we may take lightly, they all nailed Jesus to the cross and all deserved an eternity in hell. Even if they were to be the only sin we ever committed, they deserve an eternity in hell, separated from the holy, sinless God. No matter how we might feel or the degree to which we might become used to sin, we must remind ourselves of the heinousness of sin--all want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.

What then do we do? Do we then punish ourselves for them? By no means, for Jesus took that punishment and it cannot be repeated! Do we let them go? May it never be, for they brought God's wrath down upon His Son on the cross. We take them to Him, we confess them, we repent of them with gospel-driving repentance, we acknowledge their evil, we ask His forgiveness, and we then bask in His glorious grace to those who are in Christ. We take sin seriously and acknowledge it for what it is, yet we do not wallow in our guilt over it. We take it to the cross and rest in the grace that has saved us from its punishment and freed us from its power.

By His Grace,
Taylor