What Is Sin?
Yesterday, our church administrator shared a story from ROCK (our ministry to 3-5th grade students). They were talking about what sin is. She said a young girl, probably in 5th grade, gave this statement, “Well, it’s like, if you’re taking a test and you’ve written the answers on your hand. It’s only bad if you get caught.”
So, the definition of sin to this young girl is that it’s only sin if you get caught! Wow! It’s sort of sad, sort of funny, and sort of a great representation of the messages that we put out there.
My first thought on hearing this was in regards to our current administration in the United States. Is it wrong to lie to people? Apparently not! First, we have all these conflicting stories about the intelligence used to justify our invasion of Iraq. Turns out it was all wrong. Any apologies? Any admission of error? Not really. Instead, we’re trying to position ourselves to take out Iran while we’re over there. You know…maybe we should set the example and destroy our own nuclear weapons and resources to make nuclear weapons first. Maybe then Iran and North Korea wouldn’t have such a strong desire to have ability to make these weapons. Then, we’ve got this wire tapping thing. They got caught. They weren’t using the proper channels and avenues to go about this…invasion of privacy. So, instead of saying, “Well, we didn’t go about it the right way. We were wrong. We’re sorry!”, the administration has instead basically said “We haven’t done any thing wrong.” Gonzalez even stated that George Washington used electrical wire tapping…Hmm, interesting!So, our governmental leaders, many of whom claim to be Christians (though my father would say at least one appears to be more of an anti-Christ than a Christian), don’t fess up to their errors. A wonderful example to the rest of our nation and the world.
So, of course this young girl only thinks something is wrong if you get caught. That’s the way things have been working in our society for a while. We have found ourselves in a position where we can justify just about anything…it’s okay to steal a candy bar because I’m hungry…it’s okay to cheat on this test because I was out late and didn’t get a chance to study…it’s okay to gossip about that person because they gossip too…it’s okay to cheat on my taxes because the government is corrupt anyway…and so on and so on.
To me, sin is any thing that we do that fails to bring God glory. I want to lead a life of worship, a life where all I say and all I do glorifies God. I fail at that all the time. But, I’m not going to try and hide my failures. It doesn’t matter if I don’t get caught…because, ultimately, God knows all! So, I guess we’re all screwed if we’re planning on hiding our sins!
What is sin to you?