Love Matters

“After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.” Henry David Thoreau

Achy, runny nose, headache, fever, cough...not the problem itself, but are all symptoms of a problem. Flu season... many of us try to avoid it by getting the flu shot. Some who get the shot get the flu anyway. Determining which strain of vaccination to give, I am sure, is very similar to predicting the weather.

SIN... the very mention of the word has probably conjured up a list of do's and don'ts in your mind. For what might be SIN to one person, is considered normal to another. In a world where it seems what once was thought to be SIN is now accepted, and the concept of truth seems to be fluid, how can we determine what SIN is?

If SIN is defined by our actions it will always be relative to the culture or an individual's standard of what is considered right and wrong. Actions that are acceptable change depending on cultural acceptance and individual's concept of standards. Burping is considered rude in America, however in some cultures it is considered a compliment.

SIN must be defined, not by actions that we deem to be wrong, but by something else that is more concrete and unchangeable.

Romans 3:23 teaches us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 5:12 tells us that through Adam sin entered the world, and that his sin brought death. In verse 18 we are told that Adam's ONE sin brought condemnation for everyone. If SIN is a variety of actions , why would we be condemned by ONE SIN?

ONE SIN... That is the key... It is one issue that is manifested in different ways.

The flu has multiple symptoms but can only be diagnosed when a sample of fluid is taken from the individual that exhibits those symptoms. That sample is then tested and compared to a standard, a specific virus which confirms that the virus causing those symptoms is indeed the FLU.

SIN is the same... Adam's one SIN was disobedience. His choice to serve himself rather than GOD. God gave him a job to do and instructions to follow. He chose to serve himself. This is SIN... Simply put SIN is:

Serving the

'I'

Nature

Anything that causes us to serve our self is SIN. When Jesus came, He constantly instructed that everything He said and everything He did was ONLY what the Father told Him to say or do. Even before He made His journey to the cross, He asked in the Garden of Gethsemane, " Abba Father everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine." Three times while Jesus was on the cross He was told to 'save Himself'. Yet all of these times He made the choice to lay His will aside, and choose the path that God the Father had chosen for Him to take.

That is what it means in Romans 6:6-7 when it says, " 6. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to SIN 7. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin." Serving the I Nature.

Until we die to our SELF we are slaves to Serving our Selves... Serving the I Nature. Crucifixion was a death by suffocation. When we crucify the flesh we suffocate the desire that feeds it. When we surrender our WILL to God's WILL, as Christ did,we will be free from serving ourselves.

So often in our Christian life,we have a list of do's and don'ts that we have set as a standard to judge whether or not we are 'in SIN'. We know to stay away from those 'bad' things, but remember man ate from the tree of the knowledge of GOOD & Evil, so we can actually do "good" and still be in SIN. You see , if we do "good" to merely serve ourselves then we are still in SIN. We must not eat any of the fruit from the knowledge of the tree of good and evil but only eat from the tree of life.

Man is born into this world screaming the gospel story. Every person who has ever been born declares the gospel. You see, every person declares that in order to have life, one must be covered in the blood and every person who is born, requires an outside source to sustain them until they can walk on their own and therefore help sustain someone else.

It is God's design that creation declare His glory. In order for us to truly be free from Serving the I Nature, we must be covered in the blood of Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah. And we must have an outside source, the Word of God and Holy Spirit, to sustain us. Then when we are able to walk, we will bring others to Jesus so that they too can be sustained.