Little Sins

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God"(Romans 3:23). There are a couple ways you could receive this verse. The wrong way would be to think that because everyone sins it's not really such a big deal.  “We’re all human. We all make mistakes.” While that’s true, that isn’t what Paul was getting at. He is dealing in terms of guilty or not guilty in the court of God’s justice. Having the nicest room on the Titanic isn't much of a comfort when the whole boat is sinking. Being one of many sinners isn't consolation when we are guilty of crimes against God, and with God there are no little sins.

I'm tempted to define a little sin as an offense I commit against someone else and a big sin as a transgression that someone commits against me. It’s like minor surgery. Minor surgery is any operation that you are having and major surgery is any operation I’m having. It’s never “minor” if you are laying on the hospital table looking up at the surgical lights. If I tell a "little lie" I could say that no one got hurt, so it’s not that bad. On the other hand, when someone looks me in the eye and lies to me, that hurts and offends me and it is suddenly a different story. Or, consider if my enemy slanders me, it hurts and I don't like it, but I don't expect anything less from him. I know several people, like the man said, "whose favorite reading would be my name on a tombstone." However, if my friend, or a church member, or a spouse slanders me, that hurts. It is the same sin, but the weight of the sin is heavier to bear when a trusted friend hurts you. Who you sin against matters.

Now, let's try to put all this together. When you sin, you are breaking God's law. To look at our sins lightly, or to suggest they are not a big deal, is to blaspheme the Lord and His law. We are sinning against and breaking the law of a good, holy, merciful God. And by belittling our crimes against God  and saying they are not a big deal, we are suggesting that the person we are sinning against (God) is somehow small and unworthy of our concern. You have sinned against the Almighty, Eternal God. The Lord of Glory who gives you life and your every breath. Don’t measure the sin by your own standard, but by who it is you are sinning against. Ordinary sins stain souls as just as black as the sins that make us gag. There are no little sins when you have a big God. In the book The Valley of Vision, one man prayed, "Let me never forget that the heinousness of sin lies not so much in the nature of the sin committed, as in the greatness of the Person sinned against."