What is Sin?

Something we don’t like to talk about lol. Who does?

How do we define sin?  God defines sin repeatedly in The Bible.  But in order to understand God’s definition of sin, we must first read the Bible. (hint, hint 🙂

Webster’s dictionary defines sin as, “an offense against religious or moral law. b : an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible it’s a sin to waste food. c : an often serious shortcoming : fault.”

Christian hamartiology describes sin as, “an act of offense against God by despising his persons and Christian biblical law, and by injuring others. In Christian views it is an evil human act, which violates the rational nature of man as well as God’s nature and his eternal law.”

The Bible itself defines sin in a number of places. One place includes in types of sin, “pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth”. These are often referred to as the “seven deadly sins”.

But notice one thing they have in common: they are all a type of selfishness.

And when we really think about it, selfishness is at the root of all sin, including the seven listed above.

Why is it important? Because it simplifies our lives so much. When we are trying to make choices, what we really need to consider is are they selfish ones? This can apply not just to our actions, but to our speech. Does our speech build someone up or tear some one down? Does it satisfy a need in us or help another?

Jesus commanded us to love God with our whole heart and soul and love one another. All sin is really our refusal to follow these two commands.

So let’s face it, we all sin. Even the best of us have bad days or days when we are tired and crabby! Days when we consider our selfish needs rather than our Lord’s commands or the needs of others. We just do. If we could be perfect, than Jesus would not have had to suffer for our sins. So the question is, what do we do?

We simply ask God to show us where we have fallen short.

We ask God for His forgiveness.

And we ask God to give us the strength to do better today. And everyday.

And we ask all of this in Jesus’ Name.