Dr. Gregory Reid
No Comments
November 14, 2016

“Oopsie!” I think if the church stopped labeling things mistakes and called them sins (which we are all guilty of) we could lead people to repentance – the cure at the Cross. By calling sins “mistakes” it implies that we did an “oopsie” and we just need to get our boo-boos cleaned up. But sin is never an oopsie. We very well did mean to do what we did. Sin is deliberate. King Saul lived in the land of “oopsie” – “I made a mistake, the people made me do it, it’s ’cause of David,” etc. But David said, “Against You and You alone have I sinned and done evil in thy sight.”

God has compassion because He knows without Jesus we are slaves to sin. But when we dilute the truth and convince people that they just “made mistakes,” it both dilutes the power of the Cross and the deadliness of sin. If one gets bitten by a rattlesnake, you don’t say “oopsie.” You run to the doctor. Sin is that rattlesnake. Jesus is that doctor. The cross is the cure. Without the cross, there is no cure, just the illusion that you just “need a little adjusting” and learn to make better decisions, because “you’re better than that!”

Those who love you enough to say “that is a destructive sin” are not haters and judgers. They are diagnosticians trying to save you from eternal death, or, for believers, trying to keep you from a miserable Christian life where you keep making the same “mistakes” over and over without coming to the absolute freedom that comes from saying, “I’ve sinned. I’m broken. I’m sorry. Jesus forgive me. Cleanse me. Heal me.” May Jesus lead you gently to the Cross and lead you to resurrection life.

My thoughts from the desert this morning.

Gregory Reid