Taking responsibility for our sin.

We sin regularly.

Sin breaks our fellowship with God and with others. Some sins are also illegal. Some sins may bring deep hurt to those closest to us.  Some have physical consequences for us and others.

What we do when we sin is important.

I know friends who have confronted colleagues about the way they treat people. They ambush people and demand a quick decision. They bring a group who agrees with them to pressure the one who has just heard about the issue for the first time. They respond by claiming that God had wired them this way for leadership.

It seems that first we medicalize sin. I’m not a drunk, I suffer from alcoholism.

Then we may geneticize sin. There is a gene that causes …

Then we divinize our sin. God made me this way.

Of course there is some truth to this. Some choices become physical addictions. We do have genetic and social backgrounds that point us in wrong directions.

However.

We are responsible.

God looks at our situation and tells us that He can and will judge us.  Believers are responsible for their thoughts, words and actions. Peter is clear that God’s people will be judged (1 Peter 4:17). Paul told the Corinthians that they were accountable for how they built on the foundation of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 3:12).  Jesus told a familiar parable about our different talents and our need to be good stewards (Matthew 25:14-30).

We are responsible.