As I was driving into work last night, I passed a bus with a sign on the side which said “Sin Limites”.  For those of you who don’t speak Spanish it means “Without Limits”, but the first thing that struck me wasn’t the interpretation, but what it appears to actually say: Sin Limits.

The version of the Gospel I grew up with as a child was that we shouldn’t sin because it hurts God’s feelings and makes it so He can’t be with us.  What I have discovered as an adult is that sin does limit, but not God—it limits us.  In the Garden of Eden, Adam had no limitations save one—to not eat of the fruit of the tree that would bring death.  After consuming that fruit, Adam had nothing BUT limitations—limits on where he could live, what he could do with his time, and even how LONG he would live.  Sin is the ultimate limiting factor, preventing us from receiving the fullness and goodness that God has for us.

Jesus came as a man and modeled what it was like to live WITHOUT limits, then died on the cross and rose again so that we all could share in that experience.  Roman 8:29 says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”  God foreknew everyone—and His version of predestination is that you and I have been predestined to become like Jesus, able to live without the limits that sin places on us.

God is far more interested in living with us than He is in policing us to make sure we are sin-free.

In fact, He isn’t worried about our sin at all, nor is he threatened by it.  Jesus already solved the sin problem from God’s perspective, so we simply have to continue to walk out our lives filled with the Holy Spirit, and we will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.  We don’t need to work really hard not to sin, we simply have to walk alongside God and He will remove the limitations that sin places upon us.

If you are struggling today with any thought, action, desire, or anything else that is sin or a temptation leading to it, be reminded that in this moment you can walk by the Spirit and cease to worry about how to stay away from those other things that will place limitations and controls on your life.

It is for freedom that Jesus has set us free— go and live without limits!