The Nature of Sin
I’ve been reading on the nature of sin in John Stott’s Basic Christianity, and it has set me thinking. Then I read this post by a good friend, and I knew that I must post something on the nature of sin.
Sin is fun. Let’s face it: sin is more fun than the Christian lifestyle. But the pleasure sin brings is only for a season; and then the consequences set in. Yes, there are consequences for every sin, some more severe than others. No matter how much fun sin might be, it never outweighs the consequences.
At its heart, sin is loving self more than loving God. A healthy life is lived to please God, a selfish life is lived to please yourself. Only others-centered people are able to please God. The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are the servants, after all.
Despite what atheists think, good works are a central tenant of Christianity. The love of God will manifest in the life of the believer, and it will do so as the fruits of the Spirit, and inevitable good works will follow.
Which brings me to an interesting point. Why do some people draw close to God, while others don’t? It is a simple matter of lifestyle choices. The closer that one draws to God, the more aware of sin one is. This can become extremely uncomfortable for the sinner who loves his sin more than he loves God. As the sinner exposes his sin to himself, he becomes squeamish, realizing that in order to continue the journey closer to God, he must rid his life of this sin that he loves so much. Either he must continue down this road, shedding the sin, stall where he is and keep the sin, or turn tail and run the other direction, away from God.
The third option is what the atheist does. He invents 1000 intellectual objections to God, while the real reason he rejects God is that he couldn’t stand to see himself from God’s point of view. He couldn’t part with his sin.
Why are some able to draw near to God? Because they love God more than they love their sin. Those that can’t draw near to God love their sin more than they love God. These people want to live life their way instead of God’s way, assuming (pridefully) that their way is better.
Make no mistake: living in sin is much more fun than the Christian lifestyle. However, the long term consequences spell disaster for your life. It will lead to an early grave, for the wages of sin is death. Scientific studies prove that religious people have less stress, less depression, and more self-discipline than the nonreligious. Maybe this God guy knows what’s best for us after all!
Share this:
Posted on February 4, 2009, in Bible Thoughts, Sin and tagged Personal, Sin. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
Josiah Concept Ministries 
“The third option is what the atheist does. He invents 1000 intellectual objections to God, while the real reason he rejects God is that he couldn’t stand to see himself from God’s point of view. He couldn’t part with his sin.”
You know nothing about atheism. Atheist don’t believe in god because there is no proof god. Same with sin, they don’t believe it because there’s no proof. Most atheist #1 objection to god is proof. There’s no proof of an existence of one.
I expected an atheist to say that.
What you do is ignore all the proofs for God. The evidence is all around you; you’re just so strongly biased with philosophical naturalism that you fail to see it.
“Sin is fun. Let’s face it: sin is more fun than the Christian lifestyle.”
I disagree. And as long as you foster that attitude, you are clearly unregenerate. What’s fun about murder? Nothing unless you’re a psychopath! What’s fun about stealing? Again, nothing unless you’re a psychopath! What’s fun about knocking up another man’s wife? Ok, so if she’s hot that’ll be fun, but how can you even enjoy that fun knowing what you’re doing to that marriage…unless you’re a psychopath? Who would find lying (like really big lies especially) fun except a psychopath? Who would find getting inebriated and losing control of your body and actions fun, except a psychopath? Do you see a pattern here? Horrendous sins are only committed by psychopaths. Now, lesser sins are committed by normal people, such as outbursts of anger (not fun), telling a little white lies to stay out of trouble (not fun), missing an opportunity to do good (not fun). Pleasures of sin? Yeah right. Even sex, as great of a pleasure as that is marketing as being (never done it so what do I know) can’t be as great as everyone acts like. If it were, then why aren’t all the sluts in the world happy? Why are they always complaining? Why are married people miserable? Why are people who shack up together without marriage miserable? Isn’t sex supposed to make you happy? Apparently it doesn’t work! And what wonder, seeing as how sex is nothing more than what the emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote of it (who being emperor must have surely had opportunity to have lots of it) when he says in his book that sex isn’t anything more than something rubbing on your private. How can something reducible to something that simple make you happy? It cannot. In fact, is it not the cause of almost all misery on earth (if not ALL misery)? Yes it is. By it a man increases the mouths he must feed, and thereby his trouble and labor…and hence his misery. His livelihood is sucked away in child support, and does not Solomon say “There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God”? (Eccl 2:24) But because of sex a man enjoys less and less of his labor until finally his labor avails him not at all because he’s spawned so many mouths he can’t feed them all. Again, in Ecclesiastes 1:8 “All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.” Nor is the private ever satisfied with sex, nor the woman with spending all your money on frivialities, nor the mouth satisfied with eating. Nor is the Calvinist ever satisfied with destroying souls. Nor is the Muslim satisfied with destroying bodies. Nor is an evil god ever satisfied with tormenting. But is a good God satisfied with saving? And are not those who leave sex behind to the god of this world and his blind followers and seek a Good God satisfied with salvation?
I think Marcion missed my point. Sin is fun in the act of doing it. But, as you’ve clearly pointed out in the rambling comment, the consequences are never fun. That was my original point, and I’m sorrry if you misinterpreted me.
I don’t care for you to judge weather or not I’m regenerate or not. Only God can do that.
“Atheist don’t believe in god because there is no proof god. Same with sin, they don’t believe it because there’s no proof.” — There is proof for the existence of sin. Everytime you atheists say “nothing is wrong with rape” you prove that rape is wrong, because you are fighting against the natural instinct that says it is wrong. Everytime you atheists say “nothing is wrong with child molesting” you prove that rape is wrong, because you are fighting against the natural instinct that says it is wrong. Everytime you atheists say “nothing is wrong with being a fag” you prove that rape is wrong, because you are fighting against the natural instinct that says it is wrong. So also there is proof that a God made the world, by this very fact that in order to avoid the natural instinct that tells you a God made the world, you concoct and idiotic theory that by random chance an alien race evolved on some other planet far away from non-life to life, and then the aliens seeded this planet of ours with life. You would not put forth such a stupid theory unless you did so to try and squash the natural instinct that plainly tells you how life began. Or again, if you say life began on the backs of crystals, that primordial soup oozed down the back of a forming crystal and the random shapedness of the crystalline structures somehow randomly arranged it into the 250 or more proteins necessary for a cell to function just magically came into being on the backs of crystals, this idiotic theory is only put forth so you can deny your natural instinct to believe in a deity creating the world. And you only want to deny your natural instinct that a deity created the world so you can also deny your natural instinct for morality. You want to impregnate your mother, rape your own children, then eat your neighbor’s brains for dessert, and therefore you deny the existence of God and pretend to be a glorified strain of strep throat walking on two legs.
Interesting as usual, Rey. And Blasphimus thought I was the one who didn’t know anything about atheists! 🙂