As the Easter holiday approaches, most of us feel that we have “the basics” down pretty well. We learned that Adam and Eve sinned, and that as a result God sent His Only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross. His resurrection three days later conquered our sin problem, and allowed heaven’s gates to be opened to us—sounds like Sunday School 101, doesn’t it?
Yes, sin does separate us from an all-holy God–not even one sinful act can be tolerated in the sight of a perfect God. But we live in an age that refuses to acknowledge “SIN” as being “SIN”. Oh, but we sure do have creative ways to sugarcoat the obvious!!
A good example—society calls it an “extra”-marital fling to trivialize the offense (as if man has permission to add something “extra” to an institution that God ordained many a year ago.) This is just one of an endless list of many offenses that we try to downplay. Society says it is ok to have “alternative” lifestyles when it comes to our choice of partners. But God calls it SIN!! The culture says that a woman has the “reproductive rights” to her body. And God still calls it SIN!! We say it is therapeutic to use naughty words when we lose our tempers, but God still calls it SIN!!
We pacify ourselves by calling it “twisting the truth”. We politely name it “road rage”. We say that a person had a “moral lapse”, or a “behavior disorder”. We call it “getting even”, or that it is ok to “juggle the books”. We say that a magazine is only “soft porn”, and reason that sometimes “boys will be boys”. We steal things from work, because we reason that they owe it to us. But God still calls it SIN—SIN—SIN!!
By not calling SIN by its proper name, we attempt to minimize those things that go against God’s perfect nature. But there is no minimizing that God makes His Son’s death on the cross available to each and every one of us, if we but repent and turn away from our SIN. The fate of man is not a hopeless one—God’s grace is available to all.
Oh, and then there are some that erroneously believe that man can somehow do enough good works here on this earth to satisfy his SIN consequence, but the Bible says that our righteousness is “as filthy rags (Isaiah 64: 6). May all of you celebrate the correct animal this Easter—not the one that society looks to for bringing colored eggs, but the “Lamb of God” who takes away the SIN of the world (John 1: 29).