When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what way he has sinned … - Leviticus 5:5

Today’s Scripture Reading (July 3, 2012): Leviticus 5

Okay, confession time, I do not sin. I make mistakes. I have never claimed to be perfect, mistakes abound in my life, but it is not sin. And there is always a reason why I make the mistakes, but they are just that – mistakes. Mistakes sound better than sin. Maybe I am alone in this, but I cut myself slack where I would probably not cut you any slack. I make mistakes, but if you do what I do – well, then that is sin.

Okay, I am stretching this a little, but it seems to be the way that we look at things. I have friends (some of who read this blog) who do this. When there is a weakness in their own lives, it is understandable. After all, we all make mistakes. But when the same thing happens in someone else’s life – then it is sin that needs to be confronted. I recently listened to Joel Thomas (North Point Community Church in Atlanta) preach and he made this amazing statement – we have a tendency to turn sin into a value. Specifically, he was speaking about the sin of coveting which is something that we value, often under the term of goal setting, but I think he is on to something. There is a progression that happens in our lives. The sins that we commit over time become mistakes, and then some of those mistakes become things that we chase after – they become values.

God’s plan was that we would confront our sin or wrong doing (note: ours and not our neighbors) immediately. That we would recognize our sin and call it what it is. Because we all really do make mistakes, and we chase after values - so we will never get serious about eradicating either one of those things from our lives. But none of us want sin to reign in our lives.

And the warning sign just might be the sin that we see in our neighbors lives, because the sin that bothers us in others is often a sin that we have hiding in our own hearts. What we are annoyed about in others is often a secret that we are chasing in the core of our own beings. And it needs to be confessed.

We serve a God whose desire is that we would be a people of short lists, and a people who keep those lists confessed – and in that confession, stop the progression of sin into mistakes and finally values.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Leviticus 6