The Seriousness of Sin: Even the "Little Ones"

I have been leading a Bible study at the senior adult center in our town each week. Currently we are studying through the book of Psalms: a very large endeavor. When we studied Psalm 5, three verses stood out to me in a very prominent way.  Verses 4-6 say this, 

 “For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You. The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity. You destroy those who speak falsehood; The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.” 

 Notice that the first thing listed is NOT bloodshed, but those who boast (the prideful) and those who lie. These are two areas we do not weigh heavily in our current cultural and spiritual economy. We tend to find them quite easy to dismiss.  However, God takes them very seriously. He does not overlook them. They are an offense to His holiness. 

We must remember that our ways are not God’s ways. Even though He paid for our sin, He does not take sin any less seriously. He still demands holiness from us (1 Peter 1:14-16). Will we always succeed? No. Does it jeopardize our salvation when we sin after knowing Christ? No. Our salvation is not dependent on us at all. It is 100% a gift and Christ doesn't take His gift back.

However, if we are belong to Christ then we have His Spirit dwelling in us (Romans 8:9). That being the case, when we sin, we will not be comfortable living in it. The Spirit will quickly convict us so that we will want to repent and have our fellowship restored with the Father.  You see for the believer, though sin does not effect our salvation it does hinder our fellowship. For this reason we must not continue being content to live in and justify our sin. 

 The question should not be “How much can I sin and get away with it?” or even “How close can I get to sin and get away with it?” Our question each day should be, “Lord, how can I best honor You with my life today?” He is worth our best. The world is watching and they need to know His value by the way we live our lives. Let’s serve Him faithfully.

For God’s Glory,

Chris S. Sweet