As I look at the world around me today, my heart breaks. The disregard for human life is sickening. People are tortured and maimed because of their spiritual beliefs. They are beaten and killed because of their skin color, their clothing, or their ethnicity. Jealousy abounds. Bullying is prevalent. All forms of sin are celebrated by a vocal minority and a celebrity culture. And the church? We stand by remarkably quiet.
We don’t want to offend or appear intolerant. But sin is still sin. It is yet repulsive in the eyes of our Heavenly Father. We must not allow ourselves to be numbed to the point of disregard. We cannot allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the evil surrounding us every day.
About the only response I see among Christians today is that of political activism. This has its place, perhaps; I go back and forth on this. Jesus seemed disinterested in the politics of His day, and He is the example by which I strive to live my life. We need to remember the battle we are facing is a spiritual, not political, battle. We will never win a spiritual battle with the tools of man. We triumph over sin and Satan through surrendering ourselves completely to Christ and devoting ourselves to prayer. Spiritual battle is fought and won in the spiritual realm, not in the physical world.
It seems sin is more brazen and rampant today than at any other period of my life, but this is probably my own naivete. It just seems more prevalent because of our constantly connected and media-saturated society. The sin has always been there, it has just been kept hidden in our hearts and behind closed doors. Today, it is front and center, shamelessly parading through the streets and over the airwaves. But sin is still sin. It is still the enemy of all God created for His glory and our good.
All sin is offensive to God. Many participate in sinful actions and attitudes repulsive to me. I assure you I have sin in my own life that is equally repulsive to God. Any time we put anything ahead of God, we are sinning. Every time we choose our will, our pleasure, our comfort, our desire over that of God’s, we are sinning against the God of the universe and the Creator of our lives. Your sin is not worse than mine, nor mine than yours, but sin is still sin.
God help us in our arrogance and pride! We cannot expect to live lives in outward and intentional rebellion toward God and have Him simply look the other way. We either choose God, or He will reject us (Matthew 7:22-23; Matthew 25:41-45). Sin is still sin and it has devastating consequences. We must first repent and rid ourselves of this disease and then speak up, so others may turn from their sin as well. We have become complacent in a world too eager to flaunt its sin. Worse still, we have become partners in the sin, accepting and even approving of it.
Following the example of Jesus, we should accept and love all people. We should always demonstrate the love of Christ in hopes of drawing them to Him. But we should never be silent in our convictions. We have God’s truth. We know what is pleasing and acceptable to Him and what is not. May we never be confused or accepting of what is detestable to God. Sin is still sin and we have the responsibility to model a life different from that of the world.