The Power of Sin

Sin is such a horrible thing in our lives.  A lot of people don't see this, because their attitude is "Hey, I'm only human!"  But that kind of thinking didn't seem to work too well with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Their disobedience to God in the beautiful world they lived in locked up the gates of heaven for all of the human race until Jesus came along and sacrificed Himself on the cross.  I have no idea how long of a time that was, but for sure, there were a LOT of people who were born and died in between the Garden of Eden fall and the Garden of Gethsemane sacrifice!   Everyone who died during that time frame went either to the abode of the dead (Sheol or Hades), or to hell.  Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, which overcame the ONE sin of our first parents, unlocked Heaven for all of those people who were in prison (1 Peter 3:19).  Adam and Eve had TOTAL dominion in the Garden of Eden except for one and only one thing (the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil), and like most humans, the one thing you can't have is the one thing that you want the most, no matter how much other stuff you have. 

And of course the punishment for sin always depends on who you are sinning against. For instance, if I decide to punch out Joe Schmuckenheimer because I don't like what he said, I may be arrested and thrown in jail for a few days. But if I decide to punch out the president of the United States, I will probably go to jail forever, because of how important he is.  And we should therefore realize that all sin is against God Almighty, and that means that sin is indeed serious business.  By sinning, it means we reject God and obey satan, exactly like Adam and Eve did.  And that results in 2 things - One, we are guilty, and two, we must be punished accordingly.  Thanks be to Jesus Christ for instituting the sacrament of Confession in John 20:22-23.  It should be noted that this is the second instance in the Bible of God breathing on man, the first being when Adam was created. And while confession removes the guilt for our sins, there is still the punishment phase for the sins. Just like Nathan told David in 2 Samuel 12:13-14 that God had forgiven his sin of adultery with Bathsheeba, David still had to be punished for his sin by suffering the death of his son. However, today our punishment can either be reduced with a partial indulgence, or fully, with a plenary indulgence.  If we don't fully atone for our sins here in this life, thanks to God's mercy, there are the cleansing fires of purgatory in the next life. Purgatory is NOT a second chance to be saved, but is rather a place where the already saved are made ready to enter the perfect heaven (Matthew 5:48 and Revelation 21:27).

The key to overcoming our propensity to sin is to always be thinking about how to please God. The bible says in Psalm 1:  

1:Blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners,nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

2: but his happiness is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.

3: He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf doesn't wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

4: The wicked are not like that, but are like chaff which the wind drives away.

5: Therefore the wicked won't stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

6: for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Notice that Psalm 1 doesn't say "reads", but instead says "meditates."  So many people try to speed read the bible instead of contemplating what it all means in their lives.  And pleasing God of course means doing His will, which is to not only eliminate ALL sin in our lives, but to pray to Him a lot, in Adoration, Thanksgiving, Contrition, and Petition. And then of course we must do the good works of mercy toward our fellow man, which are the fruit of our faith, according to Paul in Colossians 1:10.  These good works are so important, not only because Jesus said to do them during his Sermon on the Mount, but also because James tells us that "faith without works is DEAD!"