The First and Most Common Sin in Human History
The Way to great things? Accept and appreciate your own gifts
Imagine you’re history’s most incredible author, creating a character you truly love (your baby).
Now imagine your baby (like all great characters) takes on a life of their own, rejecting and ignoring you (their author), changing their nature and the whole story. That, in a nutshell, is sin: creation rejecting its creator.
The word “author” comes from “authority” because authors are authorities on their creations. The Author of the Universe is God. We are His creations following one of two roads, both starting with:
- The Gift. Everything (except our own sin) is a gift. The Father gives every child unique gifts, perfect for their individual needs. Even the most perfect offerings include pluses and minuses, strengths, and challenges (and crosses) to overcome.
- Communion. When a gift is given and freely accepted and appreciated in love, you have a genuine complete and whole relationship. Both giver and recipient follow the Law of the Gift: the more they each give, the more the love and truth grow between them as the relationship deepens.
When we aren’t grateful for our gifts, we follow three new steps:
- Ingratitude. Start with pride. We prideful children often aren’t grateful for our gifts, suspecting someone else (or everyone else) got a better gift than we did. We are all unique, and so are our gifts. Is it fair that we got one thing and someone else got more? The sin of envy masks itself as our desire for justice.
- Desire and Resentment. We soon devalue our own gifts and “want what we don’t have.’’ We keep focusing on what we lack, want, and desire rather than building on the gifts we’ve already been given. Resentment grows.
- Slaves. While “going our own way” (away from the way designed by our Great Author), we creatures of habit find ourselves becoming slaves of “the other way.” That’s how we get the phrase “the right way and the wrong way.”
“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” (James, 4:17, ESV).
The word “sin” began as an archery term referring to those times you shoot an arrow and totally miss the target.
From the first to the latest, sin occurs when we are designed to hit one target then decide to reject our design by shooting off the mark, winding up far from where we were supposed to go.
In the beginning, God gave Adam and Eve one rule: shoot for any target except that one particular Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It literally represented “too much information,” more knowledge than they were ready to handle. When they ignored that one rule, they immediately got off target, allowing TMI to bring original sin with it.
That first prideful sin leads to “the sin of the world.” Our frustrated sense of pride, power, and prejudice each fuel what Dwight Longenecker calls a “resentment loop’’ where resentment against someone (and later bigger groups of someones) leads to a rivalry and ultimately the need for revenge.
Two ways to choose
God the Father created each of us to be unique and unrepeatable creations, each with one-of-a-kind customized gifts — with our own crosses to bear.
Because He wanted love to be freely chosen, God also gave us freedom, the ability always to choose His Way or the opposite.
In his new book, A Church in Crisis, Ralph Martin argues “the most insistent messages” of both the Old Testament and New Testament, “is that there are two ways set before the human race: one way leads to life; the other way leads to death: The witness of the entire Bible — and indeed of all human history — is to the actual historical realization of choice for and against God.”
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans, 6:23, ESV).
The trouble, Martin says, is we’ve allowed ourselves to believe the big lie that God is so merciful that nearly all go to Heaven — no matter how often we sin — and if all make it no matter what, why should we bother going to church — or even try to become better?
Pride: “What about me?”
Starting with our first parents in the Garden of Eden, the devil has one main move: feed our pride.
“You’re great but don’t trust Him,” the great divider says, buttering us up and always dividing us from someone else.
It works nearly every time because pride is at the root of sin. Pride feeds our desire to feel like we are gods.
We take credit for all that’s going well in our life (rather than being grateful for the gifts, seeing them as blessings). Pride also tells us to push the blame for negativity and failure onto someone else.
How pride works: When I look at the stock funds I set up for our kids 20 years ago, I pridefully accept credit for their growth (before thanking God). When I look at the one stock I probably shouldn’t have bought (the one that’s still worth less than we paid for it), I think of the pal who recommended it to me.
The world teaches us “you’re No. 1,” others are second — and then you can think of God. The Church teaches us to go the way of JOY (Jesus, Others, Yourself), putting Jesus first, others second, and then yourself.
Pride says we are gods, and everyone else is the problem. Pride is often the opposite of the truth: we all want to change the world, but no one wants to change themselves.
What Jeff Bezos taught me about becoming a slave to a habit
The New Testament teaches we become slaves to whoever we follow, that we can choose to become slaves to Christ or wind up becoming slaves to something or someone else.
Here is how Amazon founder Jeff Bezos taught me what the Bible means when it warns how we become slaves. Today, I got my Amazon credit card bill, and it said I owed $189. I couldn’t believe I owed so much. Something wrong? A mistake? Fraud?
No, the Amazon Prime “annual dues’’ are $125 a year, and I’m reminded I’m paying basically $10 a month for “free shipping,” videos, songs, and the other perks of Amazon Prime membership.
I think for a second, “Maybe I should just quit.”
But then I think, “Nah, it’s just too easy getting all this stuff shipped to us for ‘free’ using Prime — I just have to keep using Prime regularly for it to be really worthwhile.” And that’s how I know I am just another slave to Amazon.
“Coming to America” (the secret prince)
In the classic 1988 film “Coming to America,” Eddie Murphy plays a wealthy African prince looking for a bride in Queens, New York.
Rather than telling everyone who he really is, he disguises himself as a poor working-class immigrant so the “one” will love for him for who he is as a man rather than for his money and power.
That, essentially, is how Jesus comes to earth, trying to get people to love Him for Himself and not for the obvious advantages of being married to the King.
Whenever we reject Him, we are losing moments with the love of our lives — the ultimate relationship — as well as the priceless inheritance available to us right now.
The target: You were made for greatness
Back to the constant choice: Your way or The Way? The world or eternity? The wrong way or the right way?
Pope Benedict Emeritus is repeatedly quoted saying, “The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.”
But when scholars tracked down what he actually said, they found the original quote (translated from German) was slightly different and far more personal in explaining the ultimate relationship:
“Christ did not promise an easy life. Those who desire comforts have dialed the wrong number. Rather, he shows us the way to great things, the good, towards an authentic human life.”
