If
we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the
truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned,
we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
1 John 1:8-10
Meditate.
Read God’s word and listen to what He is saying.
Is
sin really so bad? What do you think? What is sin? It can be considered an
immoral act against a divine law. Sin is mentioned in more than 450 scripture
passages in the New Living Translation of the Bible. God told Cain that he
needed to adjust his attitude. He had a fallen countenance (Genesis 4:3-8). God
gives Cain some wise advice concerning dealing with sin: you must subdue it
and be its master. But if you know the story—you know that sin won the
battle and Cain killed his brother, Abel.
You will be accepted if you do what
is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is
crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its
master. Genesis
4:7
Sin was
not previously specifically described or defined, but we can infer that God had
already explained His preferences to the family of Adam and Eve. That first sin
likely was not Cain, but occurred when Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s “rule” and
ate the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Sin is sin. Sin is
disobedience. In the Strongs Lexicon, #H2403 is also referred to as the sin
sacrifice, punishment, or purifying as purification of sins. Throughout
the Bible, sin is described or its qualities annotated.
Godliness makes a nation great, but
sin is a disgrace to any people. Proverbs
14:34
Jesus
proclaimed that not believing in Him as the Son of God…as God…as the sacrifice
for sin, is the true sin. This is reiterated throughout the New Testament.
The world's sin is that it refuses
to believe in me. John
16:9
Everyone who sins is breaking God's
law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. And you know that Jesus came to
take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. Anyone who continues to live in
him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or
understand who he is. 1
John 3:4-6
Breaking God’s law is probably the best definition of sin. God gave the specific Ten Commandments to the Hebrew people shortly after their Exodus from Egypt. Those Ten Commandments cover all human interactions with God and with others, so the Ten Commandments were summarized into two elements. Love God. Love others as you love yourself. To break one is to break them all. The commandments also can be considered literally or at an emotional or spiritual level. Jesus said to think them was to sin. Hmmm. That’s serious.
When asked by her son, John, Susanna
Wesley gave a long, but definitive definition of sin.“Whatever weakens
your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience,
obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual
things, in short, if anything increases the authority of the flesh over
the spirit, that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself.” That
is pretty clear. Anything that comes between you and God is sin.
So, is sin really bad? Being
separated from God is not good…especially when you consider it on an eternal
level. The choice is yours. What do you think?
Prayer
– Lord, please show me if I am headed down the wrong path—sinning against You. I
don’t want to willfully sin and displease You.
Verse
of Salvation ~ For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away
from sin and results in salvation. There's no regret for that kind of sorrow.
But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death. 2 Corinthians 7:10
© 2025 Text, photos, and illustrations by Mickey M. Hunacek. All
rights reserved.
All scripture quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) unless
otherwise noted.
New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale
House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Biblical search from Blue Letter Bible - http://v3.blueletterbible.org/search.cfm.
Books by Mickey M.
Hunacek
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