[Thursday's Devotional] - You are a Sinner

Archbishop Sheen addressed the National Prayer Breakfast in 1979.  Turning to Jimmy Carter, he began:  "Mr President, you are a sinner."  Instantly he had everyone's undivided attention.  Then pointing to himself, he said, "I am a sinner.  We are all sinners," he said as he looked around the huge ballroom at the sophisticated and influential audience, "and we all need to turn to God."

Yet there were some in John's day, and there are some today, who either deny that they have sinned or think that sin is really no big deal.  Here is what John says in 1 John 1: 8 and 10

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us...  If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

But the truth is, of course, that sin is everywhere; that sin separates us from the love of God; and that only the death of Jesus, the Son of God can deal with it.

Meanwhile, we trivialise it ('one of my little weaknesses'), we relativise it ('other people do much worse things') and we deny it ('there's nothing wrong in that').

Jesus came to deal with sin.  If we soft pedal on sin, we belittle the very thing he came to save us from.  Shockingly, we call God a liar.

The puritan John Owen wrote: He who has slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God. 

Dear Lord, help me to take sin seriously so that I might serve you better.

David Long