If obedience to God and faith in the blood of Christ gets us into heaven, what can keep us out? Sin! What is sin, and why does it matter. You hear a lot about sin in the Bible. This is a sin, that is a sin. We are all sinners. God can forgive most sins although there’s one unforgivable sin. Sin leads to death, to hell, Sheol. There can be no sin in the presence of the Lord. Before I get into an analogy to explain what Sin is, and why it is so serious, let’s look at what the word means.
Sin
So let’s look it up, what does this word mean? That may not be so easy, because the Oxford dictionary has removed the word “sin” for the reason that “it has fallen into disuse and is not recognized by the younger generation”. So let’s go further back.
In the Greek language, which the New Testament was written in, the word used was “hamartia”, which is the technical military term for missing a target. Even further back, the Hebrew word used in the old testament was “chatta’ah”, which means to travel the wrong way, trespass, or in a legal setting, it means to incur guilt. Regardless of where you look or which language you read, the theme of the word is always the same. You did something wrong. You messed up.
Many people mistakenly believe that sinning is to simply break one of the ten commandments or to break a law. The truth is that the ten commandments are actually a summary of how God wants us to live. Keeping the ten commandments is like not getting a bowling ball in the gutter as soon as it leaves your hand. That does not mean you’re a pro-bowler by any means.
In the old testament, God gave us 613 specific commands to live by. Then there are the 1050 commands that Jesus gave. Thankfully God is not into legalism and wants you to live the truth, not just follow a list of rules. We are not saved by our works, but by faith. However true faith will produce Godly works. By work, I mean following God’s will and obeying his commands. Through your faith, the holy spirit will change you and make you more Christ-like, and that’s what Christianity is all about.
Once you truly accept Christ, you will be filled with the holy spirit. You won’t want to sin continually as you did before. This feels like what is sometimes called your conscience but is actually the Holy Spirit interacting with you.
Back to the concept of using analogies to explain biblical topics. I’m sure you have heard the Sunday school analogy of a single sin in an otherwise perfect person being like one drop of sewage in a glass of pure cold water. Would you still drink it? Of course, God can filter it and make it pure again if you ask. While this is good, it is weakened by the fact that we all know that tap water contains fluoride, toothbrushes contain fecal particles, artificial sweeteners cause cancer, and so on. None of that seems to bother people enough to turn away from those. I’ve got another analogy that covers the complexity of sin.
Picture yourself writing a new computer program, perhaps it’s office software or maybe it’s a new videogame. You pour hours, days, maybe even months into it; creating thousands of lines of code, hundreds of graphics, sound clips, etc. In your Compiler, you select the option to compile it all into a working application. Is the code perfect? Who cares, right? Overall, it’s really good. But suddenly the compiler encounters a problem and the compilation fails. What do you do? You turn back, admit you made a mistake, correct it, and continue working. One single slip-up or typo can cause the entire project to fail, but as long as you admit it when you mess up and do your best, you’ll get it.
Sadly, people mess up. People go astray. People miss the mark. People sin. Nobody is perfect, apart from Christ. This is where grace comes into it. When you realize that you have done wrong, you confess your sin to God in prayer, ask for forgiveness, and actively work to not make the same mistake again. God will forgive you over and over if you are actively trying to do right. This is one of many things which makes God great. Once you are forgiven, God will never recall that sin. You need to be in a state of constant repentance and continue to ask for his forgiveness when you sin to stay under God’s grace.
Repent
So what does the word “Repent” actually mean? It means to return, as in performing a U-turn or to look back on the past and feel sorrow for your actions.
Back to the program, you are writing. What if the problem was not the code itself. What if you’re writing an artificial intelligence application, it compiles perfectly and then chooses to do as it wishes instead of following your commands. What would you do with it? Picture your phone choosing to close an application or play a song simply because it wanted to. It would be useless. But if it started working properly and showed a debug console where an error was found and repaired, you may forgive it and continue on.
If you make a mistake, just admit it and ask for forgiveness, then go on doing what is right. If you trust in Jesus Christ and can do this, you will be just fine and not have your code deleted from the book of Life.