Sin is a spiritual & moral malignancy. Left unchecked, it can spread throughout our entire inner being & contaminare every area of our lives. It can also metastasize from us to other believers around us. None of us live on a spiritual or social island. Our attitudes, words, & actions, & oftentimes even our private unspoken thoughts, tend to have an effect on those around us.
If I comlain about the difficult circumstances of my life, I impugn the sovereignty & goodbess of God & tempt my listener to do the sane. In this way, my sin mestastasizes into the heart of another person.
Sin is a principle or moral force in our heart, our inner being. Our sinful actions, words, & thoughts are simply expressions of the principle of sin residing withon ys, even in those of us whose hearts have been renewed.
The way cancer operates is a good analogy of the way sin, especially so-called acceptable or refined sin, operates in our lives.
Sins such as impatience, pride, resentment, frustration, & self-pity. Seemingly small sind can lead to more serious ones.
When we sin, when we violate the law of God in any way, be it ever so small in our eyes, we rebel against rhe sovereign authority & transcendant majesty of God.
Sin is a despising of the law of God. To despise God's law is to despise Him. So its not only despising God's law but, at the same time, despising God Himself.
When we see our sin as grieving the Holy Spirit-that is, as grieving God-we are viewing God as our redeemer & Father. Our sin grieves our heavenly Father. Whether we are unknd to someone else or unforgiving when someone is unkind to us, we grieve the Father's heart.
We also presume on His grace when we sin. Sin, in its subtle deceitfulness, will suggest to us that our unkind words & resentful thoughts dont matter because God has forgiven them. Forgiveness, however,does not mean overlooking or tolerating our sin. God ALWAYS judges sin. Shall we presume on God's grace by tolerating in ourselves the very sin that nailed Christ to the cross?
God knows our every thought. Hehears our words before we even speak them & sees our every deed.
Whether it is large or small in our eyes, it is heinous in the sight of Gid. God forgives our sin because of the shed blood of Christ, but He diesnt tolerate it. Christ suffered because of our sind.
These are excerpts from "Respectable Sins" by Jerry Bridges
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