It seems I constantly hear people who have done wrong say something like, “I made a mistake!”. Oh, how often we look lightly at sin. Sin is NOT a mistake. A mistake is when something happens that we didn’t know was going to happen. When we do something we KNOW is wrong, that’s NOT a mistake – that is a SIN! And God HATES sin!
God doesn’t hate sin simply because it’s our disobedience to Him and His Word, although that is a reason for His hatred of sin. But, the main reason He hates sin so much is because He knows what sin will do to us and our lives. He knows the life long effects of sin. He knows that sin steals our joy in life, it robs us of His peace. Sin makes us less useful in His service. Sin limits our answers to prayer, and it destroys our faithfulness to God. Sin has terrible consequences on our lives. That’s why the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 97:10, “O you who love the LORD, hate evil!”
Most people in today’s world look WAY too lightly at sin, and they laugh it off or seem to have no regard for the consequences that will harm them if they continue down the pathway of disregard and disobedience to God. Psalm 5:4 reminds us that God does NOT like sin and will not dwell with those who have sin in their lives, “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.”
We get so accustomed to seeing sin in today’s world, we watch it on television, we see it in our families, we see it in our churches, we see it in our workplaces – and we become numb to it and forget what it will do to us.
Edmund Calamy, who was an English Presbyterian minister in the 1600’s wrote, “There is more evil in the least sin than in the greatest outward calamity.”
Sin is NOT a mistake! It WILL cost you, and the price is NOT worth it! I think if we TRULY understood and saw how better our lives would be and how much closer to God we would be without the “little” sins we keep holding on to – we would FLEE from them and get rid of them no matter what it took!
Sin is SERIOUS stuff – don’t hang on to it!!