My Friend Is Sinning

My friend is sinning and I know he knows I know.  It is not a secret anymore.  It hasn’t been for some time.  Somewhere along the line, he and other sinners thought that if the world didn’t call his sin a sin anymore, that the terrible bondage that sin brought on his spirit would be lifted.  He forgot that the world calling it sin isn’t what makes it sin.  It is sin because the God who made us says it is sin and what He says is sin is only the stuff that destroys us and our relationship with Him.  It destroys us whether we think it does or not.

Redefining sin is not new.  Everyone has tried it.

“I didn’t hit him, Mom, I just tapped him!”

“I wasn’t angry, it was righteous indignation!” 

“I wasn’t lusting, I was just admiring God’s creation!”

“It wasn’t sin, it was only a mistake ‘cause I didn’t intend to do it.”

My friend says that I am afraid of sin.  He says I am sin-o-phobic.  Oh, I used to fear sin.  It was that “thing” that I just couldn’t seem to control.  I didn’t want it but I couldn’t shake it.  Then I thought that maybe it was me.  You know.  It was just the way God made me.  But then I thought, wait a minute.  God made me!  Sin did not!  Why should I let sin define who I am.  What does this sin know?  I think I will let God define me and my potential!

I do not claim that I am free of sin, but I am happy to tell you I am free from sin.  It no longer has its impossible hold on me.  It doesn’t scare me into silence.  It doesn’t hold me in its terrible trap of lies about me.  Its claim that because I have sinned that I am defined by that sin, no longer keeps me bound to that sin.  Christ has set me FREE!  Can you hear it in my best Mel Gibson voice… FEEEEDOOOOM!  No sin can separate me from the love of God!  Take that, sin!

Sin had its moment.  Oh, yeah!  It had God right where it wanted Him.  The crowd was with sin.  Yelling.  Calling for God’s death.  They had Him.  No one wanted Him.  He wasn’t popular.  Lies were told about Him.  They killed Him.  Buried Him.  It seemed like sin’s claim of ultimate power was finally proven true.  Then God rose from the grave!  Setting the captives of sin free once and for all!  Proving that sin’s claim of control over you and me was once and forever a lie.  God is our way of victory over the lies of sin’s power in our lives.

God convicts me of my sin and I am thrilled.  I don’t want that sneaky stuff in my life.  When I agree with God about my sin and repent, turn from it, renounce its claim to rule my life, God sets me free.  I invite God to cleanse me of its residue in my life and keep exposing any remnants in my life.  Conviction.  Repentance.  You guys are my friends.  You lead me to God’s truth about his power over sin.

My friend is sinning.  You see, he is afraid of his sin.  His braggadocios defense of sin or redefining sin is really his own sin-o-phobia.  I have been there friend.  It will not lead you to the freedom you seek.  It is only in Christ that I no longer fear sin and its power to dominate my life.  I am not afraid of you or your sin.  I am afraid for you.  But I will never give up hope for your freedom.  I love you, sinning friend.  If I can find the way out in Christ, so can you.