If you were to appear in court today faced with the charges of your sins, what would you be charged with?  Would you have to admit “Guilty” to charges of lying, gossiping, or any other sin?  In the grand scheme of things, we think of these sins as small ones.  But, as I told my Sunday school students yesterday, God cannot look at sin, any sin, no matter how small or how egregious.  If you want to spend eternity in the presence of God, you cannot be filled with sin.  One sin is not worse than another.  The person who murders has the same standing with God as the person who lies or gossips.  That’s a hard truth to understand, isn’t it?  But God is just and must punish sin.  That’s where the answer comes in, and if you haven’t accepted the answer, you will die in your sins and never be allowed in the presence of the Almighty.  That’s harsh, right?  So is sin!

God provided for us sinners by sending Jesus to die for us.  He took ALL of our sins on the cross and died for us there.  He died so that we can live with the Father forever.  His death was horrendous, the worst punishment that the Roman government could imagine and bring to reality.  But Jesus went to the cross willingly so that we could live free of our sin, no matter how big or small.  Now, I am one of those who had a hard time understanding and believing that my “small” sins were just as important to God as the big sins that I read about in the newspaper—the killing and the stealing and the cheating.  But, in preparing and teaching my lesson yesterday, I came at last to the understanding that there is no reasonable sin with God, no sin that you can stand before Him and say, “But that was just a little sin, and just one time.”  God cannot look on sin, period.  Have you read in the Bible that Jesus was on the cross and cried out, “Why have you forsaken me?”  God had to turn away from His own Son when Jesus took our sin on Himself and died for us.  The Good News is that Jesus did not stay in the grave.  He was resurrected, and so shall we be because of His great sacrifice.  So, when you stand before God, you can say, “Not Guilty because of the blood of Jesus.”  You can’t say “no sins” because you know that is not the truth, but you can say that the charges against you have been cancelled, crossed out, erased, moved from God’s memory deliberately because He knows who has accepted His Son as their Savior.  I hope you are one who can stand flawless before the King.