Respectable Sin?
RESPECTABLE SIN?
If you’ve spent any time at all around churches, you know what sin is. It’s the bad stuff. The wrong actions and attitudes that go against God.
Murder is a sin, right? Lying and cheating are sins. Sleeping around is sin. So is being greedy and exploiting people and ignoring the poor.
Most Christians I know would agree on those. So would many non-Christians.
But what about sin that isn’t so obvious? What about the sin that we downplay or excuse or don’t even notice in our lives?
That’s what I call respectable sin, and it’s what this book is all about.
You could also call it sneaky sin or subtle sin, or even “good Christian sin,” because it’s the kind that trips up good, respectable, Bible-reading people. People who grew up in church and gave their lives to Christ. People in Sunday school and youth group.
People like you, maybe.
Definitely people like me.
Most believers I know would never dream of murdering someone or robbing a bank. But what about talking about someone behind his back? Or thinking we’re better than someone else? Or getting annoyed and lashing out sarcastically? Or being jealous when someone else gets something we want? (For a checklist of common respectable sins, turn to pages 52–53.)
Those are sins too, even if they don’t seem as bad as the “biggies” like robbery or murder. And they’re the sins that many good Christians minimize. Some of us even get so worked up about other people’s “bad” sin or the sinful society “out there” that we completely overlook the sin in our own lives. That makes us hypocrites as well as sinners. It also can keep us stuck in our sin, because we’ve got to get real about sin before we can break free from it.
The good news of the gospel is that in the end God wins and sin loses. But we still need to take sin seriously — even the sneaky, respectable kind of sin.
That’s why I wrote this book. I hope it helps you.
More importantly, I hope it inspires you to keep on turning to the One who is the answer to all our sin.
To Him be all the glory.