When Adam and Eve sinned in Genesis 3, humanity would take one of two courses in their existence. The first course would be to hide from God and rebel against His design for us. The second path would be to come out of hiding, be open with God and allow Him to work in our lives and bring us to the fulfillment of His purpose for our lives. Whatever path we choose, we are destined to struggle with the idea of sin for as long as we live.
“All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious ideal,” Romans 3:23. The Greek word most often translated, “Sin,” means to miss the mark. In terms of archery, it would be missing the bull’s eye. Sin is simply anything that is outside of God’s created design, intent, and will. God created us for loving, transparent relationship with himself and with our fellow human beings. When there is something in our lives that creates a barrier between us and God, or us and other people, it is what scripture calls missing the mark. There are three ways in which we can miss God’s ideal design. There are the acts we commit, the obedience to God’s will that we omit, and the internal attitudes we permit. All three create barriers to relationship with our Creator and/or relationship with our fellow human beings.
Acts we commit
These are the most obvious sins. Many are out there in plain sight for the world to see. They are things like idolatry, adultery, theft, murder, extortion and lies. These are things we can point to and condemn as being wrong. In biblical times, the list from the Law of Moses was long in the way of physical acts one could commit that are sinful, or missing God’s mark of perfection. The Ten Commandments were just the beginning of the laws an Orthodox Jew was to obey. There are 613 commands in the Law of Moses. Many of them were ordinances pertaining to the priesthood and sacrificial worship.
The sins we commit are the checklist sins. You know, do not do this, do not touch this, do not involve yourself in certain questionable activities. When we see these forbidden activities, there is a principle at work inside of us that moves us to want to engage in them. It is simply our fallen human nature kicking in and saying, “Hey, I can do whatever I want to do.” Paul talked about our human nature’s response when it sees the command. He writes in Romans 7:8 CSB, “And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind.” The bottom line is that we do not like restrictions, yet restrictions give us boundaries and boundaries keep us safe.
The sins we commit are actions that come out of the desires of the flesh with us. Paul said these fleshly stirrings result in all kinds of wrong actions. Paul wrote in Galatians 5:19-21a CSB, “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these.” Our sin nature is resident with us as long as we live and will always rebel against the command. God calls us to follow the leading of His Spirit, not follow the unbridled desires of our earthly nature.
When we think of sin, we typically think of the checklist sins. That is, those things we are to avoid, like those listed from Galatians 5 above. But there are other ways in which we sin that are just as deadly to our spiritual vitality in Christ.
Obedience we omit
A second way in which we sin is by neglecting to do all that God leads us to do. These are things mostly likely only we know about ourselves. If there is something God has told us to do and we have not done it, it is sin. “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” James 4:17 NKJV.
Jesus told a parable of a man with two sons in Matthew 21:28-32. The father asked the first son to work in the vineyard. He said he would not, but afterward he regretted his decision and went to work in the field. When the father asked the second son to go work, he said that he would, but did not go work in the vineyard. Jesus asked the question, “Who did the will of his father?” Obviously, it is the one who did the work, not the one who said that he would, but did not do it.
In 1 Samuel 15:1-8, Saul, the first king of Israel, disobeyed God by omitting part of God’s instruction to him concerning destroying the Amalekites. Not only did Saul lose his kingship due to his lack in completing God’s instructions, but one of Amalek’s descendants nearly succeeded in destroying the nation of Israel while they were in captivity in Babylon. In the book of Esther, Haman, who was a direct descendent of Amalek nearly succeed in having the Jews wiped out. Had Saul been obedient to God, Haman would never have been born.
Leaving things undone is as much sin as is doing things overt acts that are clearly sinful. Those things left undone always have consequences that could have been avoided by our obedience. In some cases, those consequences are good things that do not happen and, in some cases, such as with Haman, the consequences are terrible things that do happen. When we face the choice to do something that may be difficult, let us consider the good that can result from our obedience. We will never see it if we are not faithful to follow God’s leading.
Attitudes we permit
Jesus showed us the third way we sin when he exposed the root of sin that lives within us. The teachers of the Law seemed to have missed this when Jesus taught in Mark 7:15 that what comes out of a person is what defiles them. According to Jesus’ teaching, sin starts in the heart. When speaking about adultery he said that the person who covets a woman has committed adultery with her already. In the same way, unjust anger toward a person is also a sin because it is the root of murder, Matt. 5:21-22.
When we look at sin as something that begins inside of us and finds expression in our actions, or inactions, we see the truth revealed by Jeremiah when he recorded, “The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 CSB). The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3:10 NIV, “As it is written, there is none righteous, not even one.” This righteousness is an internal rightness that expresses itself in our lives in a consistent relationship with our Creator God through the grace given to us faith in the completed sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It also manifests in how we treat those around us. Do we love our neighbors as ourselves?
The way God sees it, we have all failed to live in a way that is consistent with our Creator’s design. It is evident that we need forgiveness. We need grace. We need mercy. We need restoration. Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead to provide everything we need to stand before our Creator forgiven and accepted by Him.
As we learn to do the right things, not leave things undone and cultivate a right heart, we will grow in our relationship with God and become more aware of his grace in our lives. The apostle John wrote that when we do miss the mark, if we repent and turn back to God, He will forgive us and the Holy Spirit will continue His work of cleansing us from all that moves us to sin (1 John 1:9). It is a lifelong process, but in that process we as believers in Jesus can be confident that our sin is covered, and God does not hold them against us. He does not condemn the repentant heart (Romans 8:1-2).
As we grow in our understanding of how to live in relationship with our Creator, we will be learning to follow the lead of His Spirit. Paul wrote in Galatians, 5:16 NLT, when he writes, “I say this to you: Let the Holy Spirit lead you in each step. Then you will not please your sinful old selves.”
Overcoming sin involves learning to hear and obey the leading of God’s Spirit. He has given the Spirit to guide us, teach us, and lead us into all God has for us. So let us be those who daily seek the fellowship of God’s Spirit and let Him lead us into the fulness of His purpose for our lives.