A friend and I were talking about degrees of sin and forgiveness and equality in Christ. I think that this can be difficult to wrap your brain around. I think that through various experiences in my life, I have gained some understanding of this, but not a lot of clarity, or even an ability to articulate what I believe...then through this conversation with my friend, it all came bubbling out. After I spoke it, I was like, wow, where did that come from....and then, yeah I really do beleive that to be true....I wonder if I am right?
So, I thought I would share :)
I believe that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
(Romans 3:23) I believe that through Jesus sacrifice and our faith and
repentance we all can be forgiven. It says in Micah 7:19 " You will
again have compassion on us
you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into
the depths of the sea. " There is a song that says he will throw our
sins into the sea of forgetfulness. Not near the shore, not in a
shallow pond to resurface, but into the depths of the sea, never to be
found or remembered by God again.
So I really believe this. I think it's awesome. Once I come to true
repentance, I can be as pure as a new born baby in God's eyes.
However, we as humans often don't believe this. Our sin has a huge
affect on us. And we believe we have degree's of sin.
Bottom line, God will never remember our sin, we may never forget
it. Our sin is all equal, but our baggage is not. Jesus totally
forgives us, and we have to learn how to forgive ourselves. Sin is
damaging. It hurts us and it hurts others. Even though we are
forgiven we still have the consequences of our sin to deal with, we
have the baggage to work through.
No one is better than anyone else, no sin is worse than another
however we have various degrees of baggage and different consequences
that we all are working through and I think that is what puts us in
different places. Consequences from sin can be worse depending on the
sin. No one better than anyone else, just dealing with different stuff.
So, I think this is huge in the context of community. As we share our
testimonies with each other and learn to be completely authentic, we
are, or will be very real about our sin and things we struggle with in
our past, or even in our present. Some of us have very different
backgrounds, we need to keep in mind, that none of us are better than
another, Jesus loves us all the same, we are just dealing with
different consequences and baggage.
What do you think? Am I way off on this one or does this make sense?
How do we encourage each other in this, how do we help each other deal
with the consequences and baggage and start experiencing the freedom,
regardless of our sin?
It is so important that we don't compare ourselves to each other, that
we love and accept each other unconditionally, that we always remember
where we came from, who we used to be and never forget what we were
created to be, that we cling to grace, that we set our hope fully on
the grace to be given us when Jesus Christ is revealed. Building each
other up, sharpening each other and advancing the kingdom of God.