A Collective Yawn for Sin

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. I Corinthians 15:3

Trying to get anyone in the western world to take sin as seriously as Jesus did is a daunting task. We are witnessing a collective "yawn" in Europe, North America and South America when it comes to sin. The question "What should we as Christians do about sin?' is met with a blank stare or the question "Didn't Jesus already deal with that?"

As we in the west drift off to sleep thankful our sins are forgiven and rest as if sin that still afflicts our world is not our problem, others in our world are wide awake over sin as described in their holy books. They see our sin in the west as the most serious problem in the world and they are coming west to do something about our sin.

While we in the west are yawning our way to sleep, the rest of the world is not yawning. They are wide awake over sin. They have carefully read their sacred books and it has left them motivated to deal with sin with everything they have at their disposal. They have made the eradication of sin, especially ours, their number one goal no matter the cost.

If a Christian minister in the west tries to rally his listeners to the cause of eradicating sin as described in the Bible he is in for an uphill climb. Meanwhile on the other side of the world and even in many western capitals religious leaders reading from other prophets have crowds hanging on their every word as they promise the end of sin in the world and especially the sin in the west.

Jesus never yawned over the subject of sin. Jesus died for our sins. Jesus was wide awake when he died for our sins. Jesus aimed His cross at the heart of sin.

When we cease to take sin seriously we cease to be like Jesus. It is time the western church took a serious look at sin so we will be wide awake to what is still destroying humanity and willing to do our part at any cost to end the reign of sin on earth.

It is time for Christians to take an active part in the eradication of sin on earth and this must begin in all who say their sins are forgiven. A yawn will not do. We, like Jesus, must aim our crosses at sin.

As Jesus was being arrested on His way to forgive us for our sins by eradicating the source of sin, Peter decided to personally eradicate the sin that he was witnessing firsthand. He grabbed his sword and set out to start the first Christian war against sin. Jesus stopped him from fighting sin in this way.

Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took Him. And suddenly, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear.

But Jesus said to him, "Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword." Matthew 26: 50-52

If Jesus had not stopped Peter from fighting sin this way, then the only difference between Christianity's war on sin and the other religious wars against sin would be the religious symbol on the weapons used. Sadly this difference only in the symbols has been the case when Christians and their governments thought Peter's sword approach to eradicating sin was better than Jesus' cross approach.

Jesus was carrying a cross to eradicate sin at its root instead of carrying a weapon to only chop off sin's ears. Jesus aims for hearts with love not at ears with swords. So should we.

Our problem in the west is we are not awake enough to what sin is and what sin does in order to chose a cross over a sword. We are too busy yawning.

People who are awake to sin are coming to the west by the thousands. What they should meet as they come west is not a sleepy church who no longer is awake to the threat of sin. What they should meet is an army of people carrying crosses of love aimed squarely at their hearts. They have no idea how powerful the cross is. Have we forgotten its power, too?