Does it break your heart to sin, or are you able to move on with little thought or remorse every time you stumble? Sin is no small thing, and to treat it as such is to treat the word and character of God with contempt. (Numbers 15:30–31; Romans 2:4) God is holy, and when He created us in His image, He created us as holy. (Genesis 1:27; Ecclesiastes 7:29) For a brief moment in time, humanity knew what it was to be sinless. In that state, God called us very good. (Genesis 1:31)
We were perfection in His eyes, and every day man and woman would walk in the garden with God. (Genesis 3:8) Our minds cannot even fathom such wonder, such beauty, and such glory. (1 Corinthians 2:9) Sin changed everything. (Romans 5:12) One sin was so egregious to God that He could not overlook it. (Genesis 2:17; Habakkuk 1:13) It is the same every time we indulge in our rebellion against our Creator. (Isaiah 53:6)
Because sin is a part of our fallen lives, we treat it as if it’s no big deal. It’s a big enough deal that Jesus sacrificed His life in order to pay the penalty for every single sin you commit. (1 Peter 2:24; Romans 5:8) It’s a big enough deal that the Holy Son of God set aside His glory because we made such a mess of things that there was no other way to make it right again. (Philippians 2:5–8; Acts 4:12) Every sting of the barbed whip across the back of Jesus, every drip of streaming spittle spat on His face, was because of sin. (Isaiah 53:5; Matthew 27:26–30) It was because of your sin and my sin. Does it break your heart to realize that? If it doesn’t, you don’t understand the weight of sin or the grace of God. (Luke 7:47; 2 Corinthians 7:10)
The comforts of modern life have lulled us into a lifestyle where we don’t think much of sin. It runs rampant in our culture, in our homes, and in our hearts. (Jeremiah 17:9) Though we try to live “good” lives, there is no one who is good. (Romans 3:10–12) All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, His standard, and His requirement for life. (Romans 3:23) Every one of us is walking around with a death sentence hanging over our heads. (Hebrews 9:27; Ezekiel 18:4) Our only hope is Jesus. Without His death and resurrection, we are all dead men walking. (John 11:25; 1 Corinthians 15:17) That’s how serious sin is.
Does it break your heart yet? Sin isn’t just something we do, say a quick prayer of repentance, and move on from. (Proverbs 28:13) Every sin, yes, every one, should devastate us. God commands us to be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:15–16), so every time we fail to be holy, we are disobeying the King of the Universe. (James 2:10) Worse still, we are breaking the heart of God by not being who He created us to be. (Ephesians 4:30) If sin breaks the heart of God (Genesis 6:5–6), shouldn’t it break ours as well? (Psalm 51:17)
It’s not just that sin should break our hearts, but that it must. If we understand who God is and what He has done and is doing for us, we cannot tolerate or brush off the smallest sin. (Hebrews 12:28–29) All sins are an affront to the holiness of God. (Habakkuk 1:13) While we might consider some sins to be small or irrelevant, they all invoke the same intense wrath of our God. (Romans 1:18) There is no sin He can look on (Habakkuk 1:13), which is why we have no hope unless the blood of Jesus covers us. (1 John 1:7; Hebrews 9:22) It cannot be a habit for someone who is a genuine follower of Christ. (1 John 3:6–9) It should wreck us every time we engage in it. (2 Corinthians 7:10) How serious is your sin to you? Does it break your heart? We must reevaluate our relationship with sin. (Lamentations 3:40)