And what if you try to kill me? Or worse: to kiss me?
Hate the sin, love the sinner.
Adam was but human - this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.
We sinned for no reason but an incomprehensible lack of love, and He saved us for no reason but an incomprehensible excess of love.
Seven Deadly Sins
Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Science without humanity
Knowledge without character
Politics without principle
Commerce without morality
Worship without sacrifice.
God used the element of faith to construct the earth and its inhabitants. Whatever he said, it came to pass, then dropped these elements in us to say whatever we want to also come to pass, but sin and disbelieve has murdered the faith in us and need to be ressurected by purity and strong will power.
Storytelling? God started that. Discovery. Lust. Murder. Revenge. Power. Sin. Redemption. Forgiveness. Miracles. We simply retell the stories in the language of our generation.
People to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.
Desires are what can most easily ruin us, lovely.
Sloth may disguise itself as "conscientious work" and meet with various forms of public approval or success. But work that is not motivated by love for the life of the community, beyond the temporal and spatial confines of one's own small life, cannot free either worker or community from profound anxiety.
Don't pity this sinful world!
Just pity those who made it so!
Redemption, n. Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned. The doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy religions, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.
When it was over, she gathered him in her arms. And told him the terrible irony of her life.
That she had wanted to be dead all those years while her brother had been alive. That had been her sin.
And this was her penance.
Wanting to live when everyone else seemed dead.
If you say that you never lie in life,
you honestly insult my intelligence.
The word ‘sin’ is derived from the Indo-European root ‘es-,’ meaning ‘to be.’ When I discovered this etymology, I intuitively understood that for a [person] trapped in patriarchy, which is the religion of the entire planet, ‘to be’ in the fullest sense is ‘to sin'.
The church must suffer for speaking the truth, for pointing out sin, for uprooting sin. No one wants to have a sore spot touched, and therefore a society with so many sores twitches when someone has the courage to touch it and say: “You have to treat that. You have to get rid of that. Believe in Christ. Be converted.
The truth is, the Devil's job is easy.
Darkness entered into, darkness realized, is the point of departure for all profound expressions of Christian hope. 'Meaningless darkness' becomes 'revelatory darkness' when it is confronted by the courage of a thoughtfulness and hope that is born of faith's quest for truth.
A skeptical man with a credo, 'Seeing is believing'.
One day he found something so alien and said,
'I can't believe what I just saw'.
Then the other man with different credo,
'Blessed are they who believe without seeing'.
One day he found something so alien and said,
'This is blasphemy, sinful and evil'.
Sin is a gravitation.
Blessed are the doubters: for they shall not be easily fooled.
Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.
It is unfortunate that in most cases when the sins of the father fall on the son it is because unlike God, people refuse to forgive and forget and heap past wrongs upon innocent generations.
Men learn wisdom from their sins, not from their righteous deeds.
Wealth without wisdom is equal to life without purpose
Ashlei was free to spout off how much she loved her savior because Jesus was not about to rear back and tell her He did not quite feel the same way, that He had died for the sins of the world just because it was fun and did not want things to be too serious. He was only thirty-three, after all, and might want to martyr himself for other people.
The only sin is the sin of being born
The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling.
If Christ is God, He cannot sin, and if suffering was a sin in and by itself, He could not have suffered and died for us. However, since He took the most horrific death to redeem us, He showed us in fact that suffering and pain have great power.
In crime and enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die,
Who say to us in slander's breath
That love belongs to sin and death.
Sin may have the power to kill and destroy, but God is the Creator of life. He can create it from nothing, and He can restore it from death.(John 11:25-26)
If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.
Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.
Low self-esteem causes me to believe that I have so little worth that my response does not matter. With repentance, however, I understand that being worth so much to God is why my response is so important. Repentance is remedial work to mend our minds and hearts, which get bent by sin.
Do not fight the thing in detail: turn from it. Look ONLY at your Lord. Sing. Read. Work.
The sorrow of God lies in our fear of Him, our fear of life, and our fear of ourselves. He anguishes over our self-absorption and self-sufficiency... God's sorrow lies in our refusal to approach Him when we sinned and failed.
The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. 'They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.'
'What are you complaining about?' said God. 'They won't let Me in either.
We're more concerned about our own "victory" over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve God's heart.
Were God to show grace to all of Adam's descendants, men would at once conclude that He was righteously compelled to take them to heaven as meet compensation for allowing the human race to fall into sin. But the great God in under no obligation to any of his creatures, least of all to those who are rebels against him.
Nowhere in the Bible, however, do we find God distinguishing between levels of sin. God doesn't share our rating system. To him, all sin is equally evil, and all sinners are equally lovable.
The more a nation gets into darkness, the more it's going to hate the light. The more it's going to run from the light. And we have a generation of people who have given themselves to darkness, and they've embraced atheism, because it gets them away from moral responsibility to God.
We need a bigger estimation of God and a smaller estimation of sin.
The world as it is is the world as God sees it, not as we see it. Our vision is distorted, not so much by the limits of finitude as by sin and ignorance. But the more we raise ourselves in the scale of being, the more will our ideas about God and the world correspond to reality.
If you don’t delight in the fact that your Father is holy, holy, holy, then you are spiritually dead. You may be in a church. You may go to a Christian school. But if there is no delight in your soul for the holiness of God, you don’t know God. You don’t love God. You’re out of touch with God. You’re asleep to his character.
I'm here to tell you, there ain't much forgiveness in that old-time religion. That particular savior was a mean son of a bitch. If you sinned, honey, he was going to get you, no doubt about it.
In the Bible, the opposite of Sin, with a capital 'S,' is not virtue - it's faith: faith in a God who draws all to himself in his resurrection.
Despite our battered exterior and in spite of the festering scars and rank filth that overlays it, there is underneath it all the pristine likeness of God Himself. And we would be wise to cast an eye not on the marred exterior, but to be fixed on the glorious interior.
No matter how hard we try, we are at best imperfect people. When we allow sin, we allow our imperfections to show.
Do you think it is a vain hope that one day man will find joy in noble deeds of light and mercy, rather than in the coarse pleasures he indulges in today - gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boasting, and envious vying with his neighbor? I am certain this is not a vain hope and that the day will come soon.
Unto the Cross came death, and unto death came the Cross.
A man of logic is a man of sin.
No wonder male religious leaders so often say that humans were born in sin - because we were born to female creatures. Only by obeying the rules of the patriarchy can we be reborn through men. No wonder priests and ministers in skirts sprinkle imitation birth fluid over our heads, give us new names, and promise rebirth into everlasting life.
No egoism is so insufferable as the Christian with regard to his soul.
A wide and vague impression exists that so-called Eastern religion is more contemplative, innocuous, and humane than the proselytizing monotheisms of the West. Don't believe a word of this: try asking the children of Indochina who were dumped by their parents for inherited deformities that were attributed to sins in a previous 'life.
Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to believe in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it.
Nothing is a sin when you obey the orders of a priest
It is the business of a virtuous clergy to censure vice in every appearance of it.
There are wrongs for which religion makes no provision, and of which it has no comprehension.
-"Wanda
The wicked fear the good, because the good are a constant reproach to their consciences. The ungodly like religion in the same way that they like lions, either dead or behind bars; they fear religion when it breaks loose and begins to challenge their consciences.
Nismo li možda tijekom vremena tumačili kršćanstvo suviše isključivo kao religiju osjetljivu za grijeh te u skladu s tim premalo osjetljivu za trpljenje?
The devil does some of his best work behind stained glass.
Duty is sinless.
The truth is we are all a mess! None is perfect and without sin. So, moving forward let's stop acting like we are since we are not.
As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others - and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.
...those who break the law should be loved more and not less for their sin, for if we do not forgive then is sin added to sin and the end is death.
Whether you realize it or not, your ongoing battle with unbelief drives all your sinful thoughts, emotions, desires, and actions.
When we worry, we are telling God, "You are neither trustworthy nor in control, so I need to worry and scheme as I take matters into my own hands." In this way unbelief drives worry, for it is impossible to worry when we are trusting in the provision of our sovereign God.
A rebellion against God, even as believers, is fueled by the toxic fumes of unbelief.
There is no sin that Jesus cannot forgive.
Keep yourselves from idols." The warning isn't given to them because it wasn't a real danger or because there was an off chance someone might fall into idolatry. It was given because this is our root problem on any given day. It is what we, especially as followers of Jesus, must fight against.
The deepness and consistency of your repenting will have a direct impact on the liveliness of your faith and the brightness of your confidence. This is not because you repent so well, but because in repenting you know the darkness and trouble of your own sin, and the great work of grace in Jesus that overcomes it all.
She understood she was far from perfect, but to even imagine that Jesus could step off the throne of heaven to die for someone so small and full of sin, it was hard to understand
Jesus paid for our sins, so let's get our money's worth.
One sin seldom mentioned is that of killing time.
Think twice before you pull your trouser and rape a woman; she may be your mother, sister or friend, and you know the consequences that follows.
When you favour a woman, she will want to return the favour in so many means, but its better to rupidiate such offerings.
Being afraid is the worst sin there is.
Guilt, fear, sin, doubt. Guilt, fear, sin, doubt. Guilt, fear, sin, doubt. That’s what religion is all about.
Fear is the devil's most powerful tool because he can't always convince a good man to do wrong, but he can paralyze his will with fright, keeping a good man from doing what is right. It eventually results in the same end.
Comfort came in and stood with an appearance of guilt and shame.
Her head bent, her eyes soaked with tears, her hands and legs, vibrating like a guiter string as perspiration covered her entire body, she felt like disappearing into the thin air, maybe to another mind creating world.
And what would we be, we sinful creatures, without fear, perhaps the most foresighted, the most loving of the divine gifts?
Well-lit streets discourage sin, but don't overdo it.
But I'm a bad priest, you see. I know-from experience-how much beauty Satan carried down with him when he fell. Nobody ever said the fallen angels were the ugly ones. Oh, no, they were just as quick and light and . . .
Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him.
God did create a world without sin. We just screwed it up.
In forming an estimate of sins, we are often imposed upon by imagining that the more hidden the less heinous they are.
Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are.
The moment of confession is not merely when one hears another pronounce the words: God forgives you, or 'in God's name I absolve you.' Rather it is that point at which the sinner unfeignedly experiences himself as truly judged and pardoned by God.
Sins of ignorance or infirmity are to be admonished in a different way than intentional sins of malice of intention. The assurance of forgiveness is not to be offered carelessly by those whose conscience is seared, but to penitents who come contritely to the table of the Lord.
Sins that have been completely absolved on one occasion sometimes on other occasions cannot be completely forgotten or set aside. They may continue to have a ripple effect. But it is comforting to realize that they are no longer remembered by God, even if traces remain in human memory.
While the memory of guilt is far from pleasant (like 'wormwood and gall'), it has the curative intent of restoring us into an awareness of the constancy of God's love, new every morning. God's mercy is not spent even with our worst misdeeds.
God is merciful to all who repent and turn to Him.
No matter what kind of sin you have committed, there is always forgiveness. You must repent and seek forgiveness. You can walk in the new life and light.
And yet with every wound You robbed me of a crime,
And as each blow was paid with Blood,
You paid me also each great sin with greater graces.
For even as I killed You,
You made Yourself a greater thief than any in Your company,
Stealing my sins into Your dying life,
Robbing me even of my death.
Poverty doesn't say so much about God as it says about us.
The Adversary, of course, simply wants them to lay down their sins, guilt and all, and follow Him. But this type holds on to their sinfulness and their guilt for it, because otherwise, they’d have no relationship with Him at all. And, of course, no relationship can be based on guilt and survive.
I don’t even like the phrase ‘opportunity to sin’ because it implies the opportunity to obey.
Sin is when you turn away from God - or, in the other language, alienation occurs when the ego, that erratic, unreliable driver of the personality, temporarily turns aside from the great quest for integration with the inner self, the self that’s authentic, the self that contains the potential to be fully human, fully fulfilled and fully alive.
Sin/ alienation is psychological disease which if unhealed can lead to the living hell of lost hopes and blighted lives.
The proper biblical understanding of sin is much more radical and far-reaching. It can never be used as a weapon, because it will recoil on anyone who tries to deploy it that way.
I don't even understand the connection with 'died for your sins'. He died for your sin, well, how does one affect the other? 'I hit myself in the foot with a shovel for your mortgage'...
To confess your sins to God is not to tell God anything God doesn't already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the Golden Gate Bridge.