Without further adieu, here is the “much anticipated” second part to my post The Human Condition (Pt. 1).

In Part One, we learned from Scripture that we have 3 enemies: Satan, the world, and our own wicked hearts. Yet the only one we can control is ourselves!  The problem we face is that we can’t “fix” our wicked inclinations ourselves – we need supernatural help.

And with that, let’s begin Part Two… because this is VERY important to the rest of our lives!

“God is tough on our sin, but tender on our hearts.”

God doesn’t entertain or coddle our bad habits. He vehemently opposes them.  If you don’t think God dislikes sin, you haven’t read the Bible long.

The question we must ask ourselves is: Why does God hate sin so much?  This is a VERY important question to ask – I promise I’m not wasting your time!  If we fail to understand why sin is so bad, we won’t discipline ourselves to oppose it.

Sin has huge consequences:

1. Sin hurts people and separates us from each other.  When we steal, lie, cheat, gossip, hate people or groups of people, we hurt ourselves and others.  Our sin has consequences – for them and for us!
2. Sin creates a debt that has to be paid.  God LOVES us. He loves you and the people you’ve hurt.  Because He’s Just, He must punish us when we harm others. We either must complete our “death” sentence or someone else must bear it in our place.
3. Sin blocks us from God. Because God is perfect, He can’t coexist with our sin.  This creates a huge dilemma for Him – He loves us and wants to be near us, but our sin makes that impossible.  It creates a chasm between unholy us and holy Him.
4. Sin hurts us and will destroy us if we don’t deal with it.  Have you ever met a person in “self-destruct” mode?  There’s often unaddressed sin and guilt involved (a debt that needs to be paid).  The good news is, even what others do to us can be restored in our lives if we forgive them and give our pain to God (release the debt for Him to deal with).  If we keep rehashing it, we prolong our pain and bring it into each new day. We must LET IT GO or eventually be DESTROYED by it.
5. Sin wreaks havoc in our world!  Have you noticed our world has some jacked-up things happening in it?  Yeah, me too.  This wasn’t God’s design.  He has a perfect plan for every area of our lives, but as soon as sin enters that area, His design begins to unravel.  “Design” means “established order” or “under control”.  When we throw out God’s design (by sinning), we’re left with only “chaos” and “disorder”!  Yet we often blame God for the chaos WE create in our lives.
6. Sin leads to death.  The Bible says “the wages of sin is death”, meaning that when we sin, we literally EARN death as our paycheck.  We worked for it, but instead of reaping a positive wage like money, we reap destruction and death!  It’s not always a physical death though – it’s often the death of relationships, our health, our good reputation, our company or finances, our happiness, our peace of mind.  As we persist in sin, we destroy all that is good in our lives – with our own hands.  Biblically, the ultimate death is eternal separation from God, which is NEVER God’s plan for anyone.

What makes these truths about ourselves inconvenient?  THEY MUST BE DEALT WITH in all of our lives.  We cannot simply pretend them away in eternity.

A favorite quote of mine is: “Ignoring the facts doesn’t change the facts.”  We will reap what we sow, even if we tell ourselves otherwise.  Dreams are fun ‘til we wake up to reality unprepared.

Years ago, my awesome college pastor Jake English said this:

“Sin will take you farther than you want to go,
Keep you longer than you want to stay,
And cost you more than you want to pay.”

Isn’t that the truth?  This is “The Human Condition” – our struggle with sin.

So how do we undo what we’ve done?  How do we make ourselves right with God and with everyone we’ve hurt?

Clearly, God can’t pardon us without consequence.  To do so would mean He would rob someone ELSE of their vindication.  Justice wouldn’t be served, and the scales would forever be tipped unfairly.  God’s very character demands justice – that the scales be balanced!

Imagine us walking up to God in heaven and explaining away everything bad we’ve ever done.

“God, I was hurting that day. That’s why I lashed out and said that.”

“I cheated on him, but he was SUCH A JERK to me!”

“I fudged on my taxes but everyone’s done it. The IRS takes too much of my money as is.”

“I slept with her, but we both agreed to it and we really cared about each other.”

The problem in every scenario is that we believe our sin doesn’t impact others… that what we do is our business alone.

Guess what?  It’s not.

My sin does impact everyone around me.  Your sin does, too!

In fact, your own “private” sin can impact people you’d never expect – your spouse, children (and their future spouses), your neighbors and coworkers, even your grandchildren.

Sin is a serious disease, and it’s contagious!  But we spend more time “explaining ours away” than owning it and giving it to God in repentance.  When we cling to it, it begins to consume and suck the life out of us and our world.

Imagine for a moment what it’s like for God to hear the other side of the stories above:

“God, I can’t believe she said that. Her words hurt so bad that I keep replaying them in my mind years later. She’s right about me – I’ll never amount to the person I wanna be.” 

“God, I can’t trust women since she cheated.  I gave her my heart, and she betrayed me.  I’ll never trust a woman again, and I’ll never get married.  All women are cold & heartless.”

“Lord, we were so young when we slept together!  I didn’t know it then, but we formed a bond I can’t break on my own.  Now I think of her when I’m with my wife, and I can’t stop comparing the two!  But I love my wife, and I don’t want to destroy the purity of what we have.  Will I ever be free of her memory?”

Is it no small matter when a father abuses his child?  When a person steals another’s hard-earned money?  When slander costs someone their reputation, job, or friends?

Make no mistake: These are very big deals to God.  Scripture says every word we utter will be up for review when we face Him one day. He is deeply interested in our daily choices – including ones we say only impact us.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Even our addictions – which we claim affect only us – GREATLY impact our families and people in our circle!  Ask anyone who’s attended an “Adult Children of Alcoholics” meeting, adults still recovering from a tumultuous upbringing.  Those closest to an addict often suffer the most.

Addiction blocks us from being the whole person God created us to be!  We rob the world of God’s gifts in us when we’re desperately feeding our appetites, and we can’t give our families the love they need when we’re consumed with satisfying our cravings.

God created us to be solutions in this world… so we steal our world’s blessing when we live for ourselves, caring for our needs at their expense.  We say, “This is MY life.  I can do whatever I want!”  What a lie.

• We are all connected.
• We don’t sin in a vacuum.
• What I do affects you. What you do affects me.
• We either make the world a better place, or we tear it down choice-by-choice.

God will never justify our sin!  Ever!  In fact, He can’t.

He doesn’t wipe our slate clean without recompense. Someone MUST pay for the wrong I did yesterday because every time I sin, I create a void… a debt.

This isn’t a scare tactic.  It’s a wake-up call!  Our lives matter, and what we choose to do (or NOT do) has serious, long-lasting effects on us and our world.

But… I’m so thankful to tell you that God has a solution to our human condition!  We’ll discover it in Part Three.