The magnanimosity of sin

Somewhere in the middle of reciting the confession prayer every Sunday and praying the typical "Forgive us all of our sins Lord" line in my daily family prayer, I forgot how great my sins are and how much God despises sin. Then it finally hit me: God is so holy, so very holy, that the smallest blemish of a sin stains his holiness and he can't stand it. Its like cleaning: no matter how clean the floor looks, the focus goes towards that that one spot where the cleaning liquid failed to work its magic. Thats how God sees sin- that small sin of lying is like that stubborn stain on a white floor that disgusts Him.

I cant believe how complacent I have gotten towards the concept of sin, but a few Bible passages highlighted sin to me like never before.

Ezekiel 16 describes Israel like a baby girl in the arms of the Sovereign Lord. God provided for her, took care of her as she matured, and took her as a bride when she was of age. Then she turned away from Him to become a prostitute.

⁵ “‘But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. ¹⁶ You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. You went to him, and he possessed your beauty...¹⁹ Also the food I provided for you—the flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign LORD...²² In all your detestable practices and your prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking about in your blood...⁴³ “‘Because you did not remember the days of your youth but enraged me with all these things, I will surely bring down on your head what you have done, declares the Sovereign LORD.

Hosea 2 also describes sin in a similar way:

² “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
³ Otherwise I will strip her naked
and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
I will make her like a desert,
turn her into a parched land,
and slay her with thirst.

Oh how great is our sin! And oh how loving our God is to look at us and love us despite our sin!

¹⁴ “Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵ There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will respond as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

¹⁶ “In that day,” declares the LORD,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.’

Oh the deep deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, FREE!!