Definition of Sin
Vines Expository Dictionary
of the OT and NT Words states, “The Sin in the OT was “Missing of the mark,” but this meaning is
largely lost sight of in the (NT).” From
the free-online dictionary some of the following statements are given for sin,
such as: Deliberate disobedience to the
known will of God, the condition of estrangement from God resulting from such
disobedience, or violation of religious or moral law.
One of the two main modern explanations or definitions
of sin is called missing-the-mark. Sin is not missing-the-mark!
Missing-the-mark implies we practiced and tried the best we could to shoot and
hit the bull-eye of a target, but since we are all human and none of us are perfect, we just could not
hit the bulls-eye---we missed-the-mark! That’s not sin! If we do the best we
can for God, He will be pleased and then will help us do better. The second most
used explanation of sin is breaking laws that tell us not to murder, rob, or
rape, and these are not SIN either; they
are acts of sin or acts as a result of sin in our hearts. Jesus
taught in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew Chapters 5, 6 and 7
and in many other places that sin is the rejection of or refusing to accept
God, His Word, His will, or any form of God into our hearts. When the fellowship or union of our heart
with God’s Spirit is broken by our rejection, we have sinned. Then with the rejection in our hearts to Gods Spirit, we can perform
many evil acts of sin, but sin is still only the blocking of God’s love, His Living
Word, Christ, from entering into our heart for whatever the situation God is
speaking to us. Murder only takes place after we have blocked God’s love in our
heart for someone and then we allowed the bad feelings to grow to hate and overflow to the person
in an acts of sin which could be murder or many other things, Hebrews 12:14-15 states, "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: (15) Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled."
For Christians,
all acts of sin, robbery, rape, idol worship, and adultery only take place
after we break or reject God’s flow of love into our hearts for the person or
circumstances, and instead allow lusts, hate, greed and pride to come into our
hearts again. We Christians never lose all of God’s Living Word in us, but just
like we can grow in grace by receiving more of God’s Word in us, we can also
lose grace by rejecting God’s Word which we had previously received to faith
and grace in our hearts.
A simple example of a Christian sin which does not
mean we have lost our
salvation is discussed in 2 Corinthians 2:10-11 which
says that we must forgive others lest we give satan the advantage in our lives.
We know it is God’s Will for us to forgive others; therefore, when we willfully
reject God’s Word for us to forgive others we are rejecting the work of grace in our hearts for
someone because we decide to not forgive them. We are breaking our proper
fellowship with God by rejecting His Love, the work of grace from our hearts and through us to
the other person. We have rejected the flow of God’s Love in and through us to the other person and –that is SIN!
live by some moral code they hopefully have been
taught which will keep them from performing the acts of sin. Even though
non-Christians can perform a lot of terrible, evil, deeds or acts of sin, their only
SIN is the total separation of their heart from God, which is no
different than we all were before accepting Christ into our hearts, see Ephesians 2:1-5. The non-Christian’s
heart is totally void of God, the Spirit of Christ or any other name you might
call God because we are all born with a heart empty of God’s Spirit, or
in total Spiritual separation from God, or we are born in total SIN!
We do not sin against people. We obviously can commit terrible acts of
torture, destruction and hurt to others, but the sin is when we in our
hearts break the flow of God’s Love to that person. David says in Psalms 51:4, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this
evil in thy sight:..” We might do many bad things to people, but the sin
was in our heart rejecting God’s love which resulted in the many different
possible acts of sin. Sin is always the rejection or blocking God’s Love to us
for ourselves personally or rejecting the Love He wants to share through us to others. When we as Christians have committed acts of
sin against others, we should certainly try to make it up to them when we turn
back to God and receive His love for them into our hearts.
First, God may be
teaching us that we need to change something in our lives; such as, our temper,
bad language, drinking, smoking, etc. When we recognize God speaking to us and
that He wants us to make a personal change, if we refuse to accept His Word of
correction to faith in our hearts, then we have also refused the work of grace
needed in our hearts to help us make His desired change in us, and that is sin.
We have rejected and blocked God’s love from entering our hearts for that
situation, and we have sinned! God hurts because we will not allow Him to make
us who He wants us to be for His future use.
We hurt because we have refused to receive His love, and we will be in unbelief, which is rejection of God, His
Word,or His Will for that situation, and we will be out of fellowship
with God during this time. All of those
people around us will miss blessings because we will never become the people God wants
us to be to help edify them, and our families and neighbors will not even know they
are missing some of God's blessings because we are
out of fellowship with God. Also, many of our prayers for our loved ones,
friends, businesses, and our country will go unanswered while we are out of
fellowship with God by our willfully choosing to reject His love in our hearts for
our correction. Hebrews 11:6 states that it is impossible to please God without faith. Therefore, while we are failing to receive
Him, His Word or Love into our hearts for the particular circumstances, we are
not pleasing to God because faith comes by hearing and heeding God’s Word, Rom
10:17 and Ps 119:9. He still loves us
but we are not pleasing to Him, and 1
John 3:22 states, “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep
His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” John 15:7 states, "If ye abide in me, and my Words abide in you, ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you." We must allow God's Word to abide in our hearts if we are to be pleasing to God. Also
anytime we willfully reject God’s Word we are giving satan the advantage in our
lives and during this time he will do everything he can to destroy us with
curses and by attacks of others that he is in control of.
The
second way Christians sin is as
discussed above when God is trying to use us to share His love through us with
someone as an act of charity, but we have unforgiveness or other bad feelings
for that person. We will be sinning because we will be rejecting and blocking
God’s Love from entering into our hearts and through our hearts to perform an
act of charity, sharing God’s Love, to that person. God hurts because after all
His Love and His forgiveness to us, we still do not love Him enough to receive His
love in our hearts for the person for whom we are refusing to forgive.
The Scriptures
state in Ephesians 4:32, “And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ’s sake hath
forgiven you.” We
hurt because we cannot receive the extra love God wants
to put in our hearts for the other person we have
chosen not to forgive. When we reject any of God’s Word to unbelief and are out of
fellowship with God, the devil has advantage in our lives as discussed above.
During this time, the devil will bring as much evil, curses, and destruction as he
can sneak into our lives while we delay repenting and turning back to ask God’s
forgiveness. God cannot forgive us though unless we have prepared our hearts
to forgive the other person because we hold the switch to forgiveness; we chose to
forgive, and God will forgive us; while we are refusing to forgive because we have chosen to refuse God's Love for that person, we have
switched God off and He cannot forgive us because we have pushed Him away by
our unforgiveness to the other person. Therefore, we must act first then God will respond and forgive us. The evidence of sin and the devil having been
given control in Christians’ lives can be seen throughout Christianity if we
first look at the curses in Deuteronomy 28 and then compare those curses
to what we see in the lives of Christians around us. God does not bring curses into our lives, and God does
not allow curses when we are submitted to His control by accepting and
obeying His Word, and curses do not just happen, Proverbs 26:2 says, “...So
the curse causeless shall not come.” The only way Christians can receive
the curses in Deuteronomy 28 is to have willfully given satan control in
their lives by rejecting some of God’s Word. In most cases their rejection probably
seemed to be unimportant at the time when they did it because it only resulted
in little sinful acts like, “white
lies,” gossip, arguing, envying, lusting, prejudices, respect of persons, and
other common every day sinful acts
that are not often even visible to others around us. But these everyday
occurrences as small as they seem to be are still sin, the rejection of God’s
Love in our hearts and through us for those situations, and they also give the
devil the advantage in each of these situations. The greatest healthcare
program any of us Christians could have is to get on our knees now and
ask God’s forgiveness for all of those years of giving satan the advantage in
our lives through these “little” sins, and then start showing fear and respect for
God’s Word. Christians sin when we fail to let the grace of God grow in our
hearts, or when we refuse to allow God to work His Grace through our hearts to
others in acts of charity. In
both cases we are rejecting God’s Love from our hearts
which is refusing the work of grace for whatever the situation is that God
is asking of us.
The ideal situation is for us to live filled with the
Spirit of Christ, the Living Word, in our hearts. Jesus is the only One who
received and walked in
the fullness of the Spirit continually. In John 1:14 the Scripture states, “And the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full
of grace and truth.” And the Scripture states in John 3:34, “For He whom God hath sent speaketh the Words of
God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.” We all grow in receiving the Spirit of Christ in our hearts
as we receive more of God’s Living Word, Christ. The Apostle Paul explains this
truth in Ephesians 4:7, “But unto
every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ,” for Christ is the Living Word. As we study and receive
more of the Living Word, Christ, into our hearts, we are growing
in faith and grace. Paul also states in Ephesians
4:11-13, “And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets;
and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; (12) For the perfecting
of the saints, for the work of the ministry; for the edifying (building
up in the Lord) of the body of Christ: (13) Till we all come in the unity
of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a
perfect man, unto
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Jesus came in the fullness of the Spirit of the Living Word
working in His heart, grace, and in the fullness of God’s spoken Word, truth. We each
will grow in His Spirit and grace as we receive through our faith God’s Living Word
into our hearts to produce the work of grace for our growth in Christ.
Every time we hear God’s Word we have the opportunity to grow in grace, to grow
in Christ, and to grow in faith if we make the free-will choice to receive
God’s Word into our hearts to faith and grace. We have the total free-will
choice. God will not make us accept His Word, and the devil cannot keep us from accepting
God’s Word or make us reject God’s Word. Our growth in the Lord is totally
based on our free-will choices and that is why it is so important to be
praying, studying the Bible, and seeking opportunities to hear God’s Rhema, the Living
Word, Christ. We should each make our commitment right now to set aside time
each day to pray and study God’s Word. We can each grow in His Spirit,
grace, and faith as much as we choose; there is no limit.
Choose Faith, God’s Word, with Love, God’s Spirit!
Sin: Sin is
when we chose to reject the
flow of God’s love into our hearts or through our hearts to others. Sin is not
missing-the-mark! Sin is when we willfully reject God putting His love in our
hearts for a particular situation or person. Sin hurts everyone: God, us, and
everyone else. With sin blocking God’s love from coming into our hearts, we
will not become the people God wants us to be, and others will not receive the
blessings that God wants to channel through us to them. While we are sinning,
blocking God’s Love into our hearts, we will be willfully giving satan the
advantage of control in our lives and his only purpose is to
destroy us.
