This is part three of a short series. The first being I Let Them In and the second being Mighty To Save, but you don’t have to read those to understand this. 🙂
During a Q&A with a pastor, this topic came up and I really wanted to address it. I was a bit shy about making posts like this at the time I heard the question and answer, so I don’t remember exactly how this went. Therefore, I’m going to paraphrase. The question was something like, “When I was young, I committed a sin. If I didn’t know that something was a sin and I did it, does it still count as a sin?” The response?
“You were young and didn’t know it was sin. God forgives you, you have nothing to worry about.”
This messed me up as a teen. I believed if I avoided reading parts of the Bible or researching if certain things were sin, then it wouldn’t be sin for me since I didn’t know it was sin. I still did Bible study for end times stuff because I was fascinated with that subject, but I didn’t really read other stuff. Like this would keep me from being accountable.
SIN IS SIN.
Whether we know it or not, sin is sin. When we know something is sin and we have been doing it, the appropriate response isn’t thinking I wasn’t held accountable because I didn’t know. (Sorry for the triple-negative. 😜) The correct response should be repentance. Remorse for the sin. Realizing how God sees sin. Turning away from sin. Thinking that I don’t have to repent because I didn’t know, and then not doing it in the future is enough – it isn’t enough. It leaves Jesus out of the equation.
It’s like finding a bill that is overdue. You don’t think, “Oh, I didn’t know I owed that so I don’t need to worry about it.” Someday, you’ll have to pay it. But we can never pay for sin. However, the good news is that Jesus can. And He did – if we will just go to Him. ❤
Following Him Beside Still Waters 