Sin

Matthew 5:19

19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.


I want to bring this up because I believe that we are all guilty of applying the concept of the laws of man to the law of the Lord. What I mean by that is the laws of men are broken up in different categories. How bad of a person you are would depend on where you fall on the scale of the law. To murder someone would be much worse to a judge than to tell a lie. The murderer might be put to death; the liar might not even make it in to a courtroom.


The Lord does not judge sin that way; there is no sliding scale to the offence. In Matthew 5: 19 Jesus said " 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."


Anyone who breaks the LEAST of these laws.... The smallest sin is just as bad on offence as the biggest to the Lord. It is all sin, and there is no work around for any of it. The liar is just as offensive, as the murderer. The difference is in the forgiveness. If you repent to the Lord, your sins will be forgiven, this is another vast difference between the law of God and the law of man.


The gift is found in the forgiveness, the Lord loves us. Truly, more than we can comprehend, if we are repentant for our sins they will be forgiven; however we must offer the same forgiveness to those in our lives. In Matthew 6:15 the Lord says, " 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. “. So in order to be forgiven, yes we must be repentant, but we must also extend that forgiveness. If the Lord is willing to forgive me of all of my infractions, how can I not forgive my brother?


We as a Christian society need to take a step back and realize that when it comes to sin there is no "better than you" mentality. We are all sinners, walking the path to the Lord, we will all stumble, and there is no difference in our sin. To the Lord it is all the same. How often have you heard, or perhaps even said, "Well at least I do not do that"? We must remember that there is no "at least", we do not get to hold our sin (even if we consider it small) above anyone else's sin, as if to say that I am better than you because I did not commit that big of a sin.

We are all striving to be the best Christian that we can be. Everyone might be on different spots along the path, but our job is to help each other along the way, and hopefully bring some others on to the path with us. To forgive, offer compassion, and love, that is the path of a Christian.



Peace,

Rev. T