WHAT IS SIN?

          Everyone has done it. Everyone is still susceptible to it. Everyone is surrounded by it. Sin is in the world. If you knew what sin is, could you avoid it? What actually is sin?
          The easy definition of sin is "Anything that separates you from God." A better question might be, "What separates me from God?"
          The devil is a separator whose goal is to bring you to hell.  He's a deceiver who's best described as a thief, a killer and a destroyer. He's the poster-child for hate and the opposite of love. The devil and sin go together like cake and ice cream.
          Sin begins as the seed of selfishness. We put our own desires ahead of our relationship with God and other people. The Bible says we are to "love God and love our neighbor as our self."
          In the following two selections from The Message Bible, you will find a good definition of what sin looks like and then a beautiful glimpse into what love is supposed to look like.

This Is How Sin Behaves

"It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex;
a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage;
frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness;
trinket gods;
magic-show religion;
paranoid loneliness;
cutthroat competition;
all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants;
a brutal temper;
an impotence to love or be loved;
divided homes and divided lives;
small-minded and lopsided pursuits;
the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival;
uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions;
ugly parodies of community.
I could go on. This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know.
If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom."

Galatians 5:19-21 The Message

This Is How Love Behaves

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.1 Corinthians 13:4-13 The Message

Thanks for your time. Go do something nice for somebody.
Jesus loves you and so do we.

     Bob Kuebler is the Director of Youth With A Purpose. Bob has spent the last 15 yrs. learning about pain and perseverance from inner city young people and their families. Healing starts with love and encompasses compassion and empathy.
     Our mission at YWAP is to inspire inner-city young people to develop as God's leaders who overcome the mindset of poverty and gang violence and mentor the next generation. Bob is the Author of six books, several magazine articles and blogs including The Bright Spot Report. He regularly shares with audiences about how God is redeeming our cities through young people.

Bob can be reached at 716-830-8240 or ywapbuffalo@yahoo.com.
www.youthwithapurpose.org