How do you spell “sin”?

September 27, 2006

By Greg Ebie

I’m glad my parents never “threw the baby out with the bath water.” Their love for me was bigger than the mischief I often found myself in, and even after the baby was big enough to know better, their love was bigger than my sin and disobedience.

Perhaps you are uncomfortable calling childish pranks or teenage rebellion sin; maybe you would like to call it the “freedom of self-discovery” or simply “emotional growing pains.” Call it what you like, I’ve learned over the years that no matter how big or small it may be sin is still sin and “I” am always in the middle of it.

David kept himself in the middle of his sin. He understood that his sin began by just thinking about what he wanted and not what was right; David sinned with Bathsheba and then had her husband, Uriah, murdered to try to cover up the transgression.

When the prophet Nathan confronted David with his sin, David could have taken himself out of the middle of sin by blaming Bathsheba or even Uriah. David could have said the sin wasn’t his fault, but was caused by the pressures of being king. Or he could have blamed his predecessor, King Saul, who had tried to kill him countless times. Or David could have reached way back in the past and blamed his childhood.

David could have come up with all kinds of excuses to get himself out of the middle of his sin. But he didn’t. David knew he stood in the center of his sin with no one else to blame.

Don’t throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!

(Psalm 51:11,12, The Message)

When our sin is exposed, being in the middle of it is not a fun place to be. Perhaps that’s why so many of us try to shift the blame to someone else, taking the spotlight off ourselves. Yet accepting personal responsibility and embracing the sorrow and grief that hits us in the middle of sin is the first step to freedom.

David confessed his sin to God: “Lord, You are the one I have violated; my sin is against You!” Only when we own up to our sin can we ask God to give us a new start; from the middle of our sin is the only place where God can pick us up and give us the joy of His salvation. Don’t be afraid to come clean with God; He won’t throw you out with the bath water.

D. Greg Ebie is senior pastor of Praise Assembly of God in Garrettsville, Ohio, and an author of Daily Bread devotionals.