How do you view your sin?

How you view your sin is one of the most important views you can have.

The greater the sin, the greater the savior that saves you from your sin, and therefore, the greater the response to that savior.

And I’m not implying a need to embellish the wicked nature of our sin.  I’m advocating an accurate view.

What is an accurate view?

The magnitude of our sin is determined by the magnitude of God’s holiness.  Because God is infinitely holy, our sin is infinitely wicked.

But that’s not how we look at it, is it?

We categorize sins into differing degrees of wickedness to coddle our least detected sin of self righteousness.  We justify ourselves, because our sins, in our minds, aren’t as bad as pedophilia, murder, or rape (which proves our sin of self righteousness).

But that’s our problem.  Our most exalted thoughts of God’s holiness fall dreadfully short of how holy he is, because our finite minds can barely even begin to comprehend the magnitude.  In the same way it’s not even possible to comprehend how wicked, vile, disgusting, and gross our sins are.

Our safest bet is to think of the sins we deem as most wicked and know that ALL of our sins are worse before an infinitely HOLY GOD.

How would your life change if you started viewing lying, gluttony, laziness, fear of man, not keeping your word, worry, and selfishness with the same level of disgust as pedophilia?  This was one of the main points of Jesus’ sermon on the mount: Lust is adultery, hatred is murder, etc.

All of your sin is wickedly appalling.

There is no one who is righteous.  Not even one.  (Rom 3:11)

Your self righteous belief that you are more deserving of God’s grace because of sins you haven’t committed or because the sins you have committed aren’t that bad, is like a filthy, bloody tampon to God (Is 64:6).  It’s disgusting.

Your unrighteousness and self righteousness are sins that are appallingly great.

“But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” (Rom 5:20)

The greater your sin, the greater your savior.  The appallingly wicked nature of your sin magnifies the incredibly wonderful greatness of God’s grace to save you.

The greater your sin, the more amazing his grace.

The more radical his grace, the more radical your response to that grace.

How do you view your sin?

(Image Credit: Jimee, Jackie, Tom & Asha)