sin

I love this photo...  It's kind of mysterious...  all you can see is shadow.  

I thought I'd use this photo here...  I guess when we think of sin we think of blackness.  It's funny how you can't really see us in this photo.  Yet- you can make us out.  It's just that the sun is shining so brightly it overwhelms us.  It magnifies the shadow.  

That makes sense.  Something bright, magnifying the shadow.  Like God and how he convicts us of sin when he shines his brightness into our lives.  In Him there is no darkness, but he shows us the way to True holiness.

Anyway.  I have had someone ask me recently, "Is that sin?"  

It reminded me of a sermon I herd this last summer.  Sin was defined as anything that does not draw you closer to God.  

Anything that does not draw one closer to God.

I guess that makes it very clear that makes Romans 3:23 is still relevant today.  For we have all sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.

I guess if I'm to take sin seriously in my life, I have a question to ask about the things I do or don't do.

Are the things I do, or don't do drawing me closer to God?

Did busyness take over today?  Did I not read my bible?  Inaction can be just as sinful as action.

But if we think of sin in this light, we take away ALL the rules of "religion".  It makes everything I do, and don't do a matter of the heart.

Legalism has been a problem with man from as far back as one can go.  When the ten commandments were handed down at Mt. Siani, it had much less to do with rules and more to do with God's heart toward man.

See, I have children.  Four rambunctious, thrill seeking children.  And, even though there are many things that my children might find fun, I set limits for them.   I give them boundaries.  Like, don't play in the road.  The reason being, that I don't want my children to get ran over by a vehicle.  It isn't that I want to keep them from the fun of playing in the street, it's that I care about their life more than their thrill.

In the same way, Father God was showing us his heart in giving us the ten commandments.  He was showing his love for us.  Showing us a better way through His love for us.  He never intended for us to make those rules into the thing we worship.  All he ever wanted was mankind's undivided heart given back to Him.

Somehow humankind tends to get the do's and don'ts all mixed up though.  We make the rules of importance in and of themselves.  We don't bring our heart into the situation.  We don't bend our will in worship.

True worship is bending and bowing.  Stooping deep and nodding to a yes Lord.  Thy will and way only.

And each moment and breath we draw on this round spinning ball allows for another moment to breath a yes and bow deep in reverence.  Seeking not self, but worship in all moments of this life.  In giving up we find it all.  The wealth we could not know otherwise.  Treasures stored up...  forever.