As the son of an Episcopal priest, I was raised in a Godly home with parents who love the Lord dearly.  I was taught the disciplines of scripture reading and regular times of private prayer, all of which have held me in good stead in my life.  On the other hand, I was also taught some fairly harmful things about the sin and wrath and punishment that truly aren’t the heart of God.  This was especially highlighted to me recently when I hit a problem and went into an emotional tailspin.  In speaking with a close friend he reminded me of something I already know, but had forgotten—the truth about sin.

Many of us have been taught that sin is this horrible thing that separates us from God.  He can’t look upon sin so he had to send Jesus to shed his blood and die to forgive us.  The result is that when God looks at us, he sees Jesus instead.  Basically, we got to put on Jesus-masks and Jesus-colored clothing to make God like us again.  But that’s not how it actually is.

The truth about sin is that it kills us.  The Bible is quite clear in both the Old Testament and New Testament that sin kills.  Our loving heavenly Father doesn’t want us to die, or experience death, loss, and destruction in any area of our lives, so He sent Jesus to deliver us and set us free from sin and death.  Nowhere in that gospel message is anything about God being unable to look upon us.  In fact, in the Garden, the Father went searching for Adam and Even when He knew they had sinned so He could help protect and restore them.  The Father’s wrath isn’t against mankind, but against everything that hinders us from His love.

The truth about sin is that it poisons our hearts.  Sin in and of itself is a problem, but just as much of a problem is how it seeps its way into the deepest reaches of our hearts and whispers lies to us.  It tells us that we are not good enough, and that we deserve judgment.  We then begin to self-loathe and self-punish in our hearts for all of our failures, further letting death work within us.  Not only that, but often those things we hate about ourselves are often activities that we are attracted to *because* of sin at work within us.  Certainly the demonic realms are involved in all of this, but at the end of the day, sin entices us, accuses us, then kills us, bit by bit, day by day.

The truth about Jesus is that He isn’t half as concerned about sin as we are.  He already paid for it all, for all mankind, for all time and eternity.  There isn’t a single thing we can do now or in the future that He hasn’t already paid for.  Sometimes it feels like when we first get saved we get set free from sin, but after we get saved there isn’t that same grace available anymore.  Religion has taught us that when we sin it’s punishment time, and God is ready to put the smack-down on us.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  We are told to come boldly before the throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help (Hebrews 4:16).  Our Heavenly Father wants us to come *to* him when we are in need, not hide from Him in our hearts.  Jesus isn’t threatened by our sin because He already conquered it.

What does that look like?  Ask Him what He thinks about you in the situation?  If you are truly hearing the voice of the Father, it is not going to be condemning.  Why?  Because the truth about God is that He doesn’t condemn us.  Romans 8:1-2 says, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”  If we are in Jesus, then there is no disapproval or criticism from the Father.  Jesus even said to a woman who had been caught *in* adultery (which means they literally saw her having sex with someone, not just suspicion or hearsay) and was about to be stoned to death “Neither do I condemn you” (John 8:11).  Jesus and the Father are exactly alike, so if Jesus doesn’t, then neither does He.

How might our perspective on things change if we stopped blaming ourselves when we sin?  What if we stopped getting angry with ourselves when we mess up?  What if we decided to change how we view ourselves and how we view sin?  Instead of seeing it as “that evil thing that we are horrible people for doing”, what if we looked at it as “that thing that hurts me when I do it, so I have to get some antidote from Jesus when I get poisoned by it.”  I believe God is shifting how the Church views sin—not because it isn’t harmful, but because God isn’t angry with us for it.  The truth about sin is that it kills us, but God made a way through Jesus to set us free from the law of sin and death, to bring us into His glorious liberty!