The Blog of Gordon Pruitt the Pastor of St. Matthew's United Methodist Church in Richmond Virginia

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Sin

Read a great article byJohn Ortberg in Leadership Journal titled The Sin Tamer (don't think the article is online yet). Here are a few quotes.
Sin is both the overstepping of a line and the failure to reach it-both transgression and shortcoming. Sin is a missing of the mark, a spoiling of goods, a staining of garments, a hitch in one's gait, a wandering from the path, a fragmenting of the whole. Sin is what culpably disturbs shalom. Sinful human life is a caricature of proper human life.

Under the heading Does God tire of forgiving the same sins?
"The problem is that, eventually, i become as used to my sin as i am to the watch on my wrist. I habituate. It doesn't other me any more. I stop even wanting to be rid of it."

So the questions isn't 'how much sin am i allowed?" The question is "Am i moving toward the darkness or toward the light? Am i growing toward God, or away from him? Am I becoming ore sensitive and responsive to Jesus?"

Under Awakening Healthy guilt,
As a leader I have to ask myself, "what are the sins in my congregation (and my life) that no one feels guilty over?"

3 comments:

Alison said...

On Sunday we're going to start our discussion of The Shack, starting with the foreword where we meet the main character, Mac, and his background. One of the things we're going to discuss is How could his church-elder father be a vicious mean beat-your-wife-and-then-ask-God-for-foregiveness drunk. And how could a church leader react to Mac's revelation of this by turning him over to his father to teach his rebellious son a lesson about respect?

Unknown said...

wow. let me know how that goes

Alison said...

Our group was pretty defensive of the church leader--he couldn't know how Mac's father would react, probably thought he would react by mending his ways, etc.
This week we'll discuss the legend of the Indian princess who jumped off a cliff to stop the sickness that was killing the men. Young uses it as a metaphor for Jesus voluntarily giving his life to save us from our sins. It should be interesting...