For whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.  For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery”, also said, “You shall not commit murder”.  If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.  James 2:10-11

It’s easy to become judgemental.  It’s that human nature that we have spoken about in weeks past.  As we try to be good and do the right thing, it becomes easy to be prideful and to judge others by the sin we see them commit.  I have often heard it said, “love the sinner, but hate the sin”.  But let me warn you my friend, God hates pride.  The Bible is very clear on that.  Just last week we spoke about how the Bible tells us in the book of Proverbs that Pride goes before destruction.  A couple weeks ago we looked at the verse in Matthew chapter 7 that tells us to remove the log in our own eye before we worry about the speck in our brother’s eye.

We often do that with sin.  When we are saved from some of our dreadful sins and begin that walk on the path of righteousness, the devil tries to convince us to judge others.  But what we must remember is what we are told in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.  Now back in 2010, I made a promise to God.  I promised Him that I would live my life for Him.  I promised Him that I would strive to be a much better person than I had been in the past.  I have tried to keep that promise, but sometimes I fail miserably.  You see I still sometimes allow my mouth to cause me to sin.  I sometimes do not carefully monitor what goes in and what comes out.  Gluttony is a sin.  We are also told in Romans that we are to treat our body as a temple.  Gossip is also a sin.  I am not proud of these two shortcomings and I pray that God would remove them far from me, but let me tell you it is a struggle to deal with these two things.

The biggest problem is that we don’t really look at these things as those terrible sins like adultery and murder.  It’s a problem, because in God’s eyes sin is sin and any and all sin separates us from God.  Now we know that we all sin and that sin is something we will struggle with until our Heavenly Father calls us home. But what I’m trying to say here is don’t let yourselves be fooled.  This scripture passage tells us that whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.  Now when we read the ten commandments, we naturally look at “thou shalt not bear false witness” as being minor compared to “thou shalt not commit murder”, right?  I mean come on telling a little white lie is nowhere near as severe as killing somebody.  Think again, God views sin as sin.  There is no little sin and no big sin, there is just sin.  The Bible also tells us that the wages of sin is death.  The only thing that saves us from our sin is for us to accept Jesus Christ as our savior and accept his forgiveness and the awesome gift of eternal life that is offered.

I encourage anyone who is not in church to find a good Bible teaching church.  I want to caution you against just going to a church that makes you feel good.  The test for whether or not the church is good or the pastor is a good pastor is the Bible.  Does what is being said and done in this church line up with God’s word?  That should be the only test you use.  I have been blessed over the last 9 years to have had pastors that step on my toes.  That’s church talk for talking about our sin.  If you leave church feeling convicted, we say that the pastor stepped on your toes.  This means that maybe you are just a little uncomfortable about something you are doing and realize that you need to change it. Don’t get me wrong, you shouldn’t leave church feeling like you are a terrible person, but it’s perfectly okay to leave realizing that you may need to do better.  Another way to look at it is a dessert vs a vegetables ministry.  We know that too much sugar is not good for us, whereas vegetables are good for us, but we don’t always want to eat vegetables, right?  There should be a healthy balance.

The thing I want to leave you with today is that we are all sinners,  we all sin and fall short of the glory of God.  It may be hard for you to wrap your head around this, but that lie you tell or that gossip you spread is just as bad as the adultery or the murder that someone else commits.  Society tells us that one thing is not as bad as the others.  You don’t usually go to jail for telling a lie or gossiping.  If you went to jail for gluttony, I would be behind bars for sure.  Adultery may get you into divorce court, but you don’t go to jail for that.  Murder will get you into jail for sure if you get caught.  Our society tells us that some sins are way worse than others, so of course, this is how we are taught to view these things.  Let’s face it, a lie or gossip may hurt someone’s feelings but murder takes a life. But in God’s eyes, sin is sin.

None of us are perfect, we all have sin in our life.  We know that the wages of sin is death.  We must deal with our sin. We must confess our sin to our Heavenly Father.  We must strive to remove that sin from our lives.  If you need God’s help to do so, ask Him.  The Bible tells us we have not because we ask not. And whatever you do, don’t forget to ask God for forgiveness.  We are not perfect, but we can be forgiven.

As you go through this day, be mindful of your actions, ask God to convict you of any sin that you have not confessed and repented of.  He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins.  We must strive to be faithful to Him.

Have a great day!