Sin

So, we’ve just completed a tour of the deadly sins and how they manifest in our modern lives. And I want to tie us back now to why we started talking about sin in the first place: Sin keeps us from having a healthy relationship with God.

We brought up that truth in the specific context of prayer. When we are not living as we ought, we resist coming to God in prayer, and our prayer is hindered even when we do come to Him.

We don’t avoid sin (or try to avoid sin) just because that’s what we’re told to do. We haven’t been given an arbitrary list of divine commandments to follow because God enjoys burdening us.

What makes sin a sin is that it is an objective turning away from the good—both the ultimate Good that is God and the good that we are called to be in the world. A key step in our journey of faith is when we realize that God is not just calling us to avoid overt sin, as he has something far more glorious in mind for us. He is asking each of us to follow him, to learn from him, and to be his disciples.

Discipleship—not just learning from Jesus, but imitating him—is nothing less than how we turn toward God and grow close to him. The only way to have a deep and healthy relationship with Jesus, the only relationship that will fulfill the ultimate longing of our hearts, is to become his disciple.

I encourage you to commit to that relationship today: not grudgingly, to avoid Hell, but purposefully, knowing that true happiness is only found in friendship with God. The most amazing teaching of the Christian faith is that God wants to be our friend. The question we face in our lives is this: Do we want to be friends with God, and walk in his ways?

Challenge: Imagine Jesus standing in front of you right now asking you to follow Him. What is keeping you from answering that call?