The Sin List

When we, as Christ followers, see people out in the world, how do we see them?  Do we see them as sinners?  Do we see them for their mistakes and their moral shortcomings?  I believe we often do see them in these ways, but is that how we should be seeing them?  How does God view them?

When I look out at the world, I try - and often fail - to see people the way God sees them, because God doesn't see them as sinners.  God sees them as his creations that He loves.  He seems them as people who have been separated from God by their sins, yes, but the cost has been paid for those sins to be forgiven.  God is pursuing each of them to bring them back to Him.  The people out in the world are not defined by the particular sins that they have committed; they are defined by the fact that they have not yet found their way back to God.  They are still lost.

By the way, so were we once.  We are no different from the people of the world who have not yet accepted the forgiveness that is available to them.  Perhaps they do not know it is available, or they have rejected it.  Either way, they are people who are in need of it.

I admit that I feel judgmental sometimes when I see people of the world living in certain ways.  I see them cohabitating before marriage or being unfaithful to their spouse, or otherwise using sex in ways God did not intend it.  I see them getting divorced or aborting unwanted babies.  I see them living their lives in whatever other ways I believe to be sinful.  However, judgment is God's, not mine.  I should not be doing such things.  I should not be thinking of people in such ways.

Here is the truth: we're all sinners.  If I look at the world, the evidence of sin is overwhelming, but it's not just coming from unbelievers.  Christians are doing the same things.  Even though we are saved by Jesus, we are still sinners, and we still do sinful things.  Christians are not altogether less likely to get divorced or cohabitate or be unfaithful.  This is not the way it should be, but it is the way it is, because we're still sinners living in a broken world.  We all make mistakes and have great moral shortcomings, and yet we often view ourselves as being better than those in the world who are living in certain ways.  We're no better than anyone else.  It's not even about being better.  It's about being saved.

If we look at people of the world and simply see a sinner, and not someone in need of a savior, then we are missing the opportunities that God has placed before us to be His church, to spread the good news of Christ Jesus to the world.  The point of this is that it doesn't really matter what sins a specific person has committed.  It doesn't matter what they're doing.  It doesn't matter how they're living.  When they're lost in this world without a savior, the only thing that truly matters is that they need Jesus.  They need to know that God loves them and always has loved them, no matter what.  They need to know that He sent his only son to die on a cross so they may have eternal life.  It is what we are called to do.  Salvation is what matters for every living soul on the planet, not the list of specific sins they are committing.  When our lives are over, it's not that list of sins that will determine where they spend eternity, because we all have that list of sins.  We all have a list of sins that has separated us from God.  Where we spend eternity is based on whether or not we accepted the sacrifice of Jesus, the one son of God, to sanctify us and set us right with God.  When we accept the forgiveness of Jesus, our salvation is set and our eternity is secure.  It is then that we try to live a more Godly life.  We should be holding ourselves to the standards of righteousness, because we should want to live more like Jesus.  But the world isn't there yet.  We don't need to be worrying about how the world is living.  We just need to be worrying about where they're going.