To deny sin is to deny God.
This one is a tough one guys. As I was preparing the Sunday School lesson for this past Sunday this principle stood out to me and, if I’m going to be honest, put me in my place.
During my meditation I had already been thinking on the idea of justification and how we can always find a reason not to do what we know we should. Yet I was still taken off guard by this realization.
If we believe that God is real and that the Bible is the infallible word of God, yet we live our life as if the principles/commandments God has set are of no consequence...do we really believe God or do we just believe in God?
To believe in God is to acknowledge His existence, but to believe God is to believe His Word and acknowledge it as the principles by which we live our lives.
Do we really live our lives according to Biblical standard to the best of our ability?
One of the books I’ve recently read that has been really impactful in my walk with God is The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel. The by-line reads : Believing in God but Living As if He doesn’t Exist. It comes highly recommended by me because I could identify with a lot his testimony, so much so that it was almost painful.
We can get so caught up in going to church, participating in ministry, and simply living our lives that we forget to actually develop relationship and reverence for God.
When this happens it gets easier and easier to justify our sin, because the principles by which we are to live our lives loses value. We aren’t reading our Bible to get closer to God or to deepen our relationship with Him, we are reading to say that we checked it off the “to do” list for the day. We aren’t laying before God in prayer or worship, we shoot Him a quick “Thank You for waking me up this morning” and go about our day. Life can get so distracting that we forget that God wants the best for us and for us to be the best version of ourselves. So, we slip into sin and make no efforts to get out because, “that’s just the way we are” and “God knows our heart”.
Have you read Jeremiah 17:9? “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” So yes, God does know your heart but, He also knows how you can fix it.
Have you ever heard of the saying, “The first step to fixing a problem is admitting that you have one”?
We have to acknowledge if/when we have denied God by denying our sin so that we can change that behavior.
This actually helps us in two ways because once we self-correct and make self-correcting a habit, it will also be harder to judge others or compare our sin against someone else’s “bigger sin”.
Romans 2:11 says, “For there is no respect of persons with God.” And Revelation 21:8 says, “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”
That got heavy pretty quickly. Let me help you to understand, we are all equal in God's eyes and we are all going to be held to the same standard in the end. We won't be able to tell God that we didn't stop lying because we saw someone else as they worshipped idols and thought He would over look our "smaller sin". It is also important to note that when we try to categorize our sin on a scale we are actively refusing to repent.
I don't want you to be discouraged, but the point I’m trying to make is this: We know better, so we must do better because we will be held accountable for what we know, as well as what we live.
We have to make sure that we are living as if God exists, because He does.
