Sinfully delicious

Here is a random post that arose out of a question at our Life Group. The question was, “How do you define sin?” The immediate response was, “Disobeying God.” And everyone seemed content with that. But is it so, I would suggest not. So let me throw a definition at you that comes from my seminary training.

SIN IS THE ONLY THING THAT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!!

As we unpack this, the first thing that comes to mind is a challenge, one that I lay out to you and that I have been thinking about off and on for these past 30 years or so — can you come up with one word that defines sin in a positive way. The only way that sin can be described in is negative terminology. It cannot be described in positives, because it is the only thing that is not supposed to be here.

Second unpacking is this, everything else is supposed to be here, water, earth, food, mosquitoes, yes even them. God created them, they have a function in this creation, although like everything else, it is screwed up because of sin. As you look around, as you think about it, everything is supposed to be here, except sin. All that our great God created is groaning in expectation and anticipation for the children of God to be revealed.

Finally, we can ask the question, what about disobedience. It is only one aspect of sin, it is one of those negatives that describes sin. To limit sin to just one aspect, we limit the severity of sin, the all encompassing power of it. But even more, we severly limit the grace of God given to us in Jesus Christ.

So think on these things my children.