Sin…it’s a dirty a word. Nobody likes to use it anymore. We like words like “struggles,” but we don’t like the word sin. I can understand….nobody likes feeling like we are deficient or that there is something wrong with us. However, without a correct understanding of our sin, we will never have a correct understanding of God’s grace.  Or I should say, we will never fully appreciate God’s grace, because we have never understood what He saved us from (Luke 7:36-50).

So, this is a short study on sin, so that we might have a greater love for Christ in the understanding of what He has saved us from.

1. Romans 3:9- We are all sinful…so any fear of being deficient or abnormal alone is thrown out the window. We all sin. None of us deserve God’s grace.

2. The Hebrew word for sin is chata, which means to miss,  and the Greek word hamartano means to miss the mark. So…what mark are we missing? Are we missing it by not staying pure? Are we missing it by lying? Are we missing it by doing any other whole host of things we call sin? Well, yes and no. Those things are sin, but they are sin because of one important thing (the root of sin)….we miss God. Sin is really missing that God is everything we need, that we are completely dependent on Him and we should be completely happy and satisfied with Him! The other things become sin because we look to them for what only God can give. (Romans 1:24-25, 3:18)

3. Sin is what we do, because sin is who we are. Think about it this way: in the Old Testament, even those who did great things for God (i.e. David, the priests of the Temple, Joshua), still sacrificed to God for their sin. Our sin goes deeper than we know…and its root is that we don’t worship God the way He designed us too.

4. The Good News!!!! There is an answer to our sin…the atoning work of Jesus Christ. His death is what makes us right with God…nothing we do on our own. No amount of “becoming a better person” will ever make us right with God, because our sin is deeply embedded into us.  Understanding that our sin was (is) great, lets us understand how amazing Christ’s sacrificial work actually was! (Romans 3:21-26)

Sin isn’t a dirty word…it’s a reality and if we don’t take our sin seriously, we will never take Christ seriously. He died to forgive us! He was raised and overcame death and the grave, so we could overcome as well! And if we love Christ, it should be our goal to continue to submit ourselves to His Spirit and allow Him to convict us and to crush the sin that we too often make light of.