It's A Big Deal

Without looking, how many posts are there on your front porch? If you can answer this correctly, I suspect you probably had to pause and think about it. We sit by them, walk past them and sweep around them without giving them much thought; they're just there ... being posts. This mostly describes our sins: habits unnoticed, careless deeds, casual words. I fear we live with the idea that sin is "over rated" to the degree we give little thought to it in our lives! The Puritan speaks of his shortcoming (sin), "all write dark things against me ... I deny them not, frame no excuse, but confess, 'Father, I have sinned.'" That word "confess" simply means "to agree with God." God, You are right and I am wrong! He has said, "Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." (James 4:17). The "right thing" finds its perfect measure in God's Word to man - through Scripture and Jesus. Furthermore, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (John 1:9). I will never forget the counsel of an evangelist: Believers should "keep a short list of sins." In other words, don't wait till the end of the day to confess a sin; admit it immediately and know God's promised forgiveness at that moment. The Puritan concludes his statement, "'Father, I have sinned'" with "Yet still I live, and fly repenting to Thy outstretched arms; Thou wilt not cast me off, for Jesus brings me near ... I bid farewell to sin by clinging to His cross." What divine mercy we find through Jesus! Those porch posts may go unnoticed but they are actually a big deal to the porch itself; sin is also a "big deal." The wise do not marginalize sin ... see sin for what it is - a big deal!