After His Heart

This morning a random comment from facebook prompted me to start thinking about sin. Sin keeps us from God. By defining God’s principles on behavior, the Law shows us what sin is. Once we have been exposed to the Law, we can see how far we are from God. Then hopefully, we meet Jesus.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. That doesn’t mean that He’s the last law, or the final law. It means that He is the answer to the Law. There is no possible way that we could come up to God’s standards, so Jesus did for us. His death was the sacrifice that satisfied the void between us and God. When the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the enormity of our sin, and the lost relationship with God, He reveals Jesus as the One Who Heals. Jesus heals the gap. He fills the void. Jesus, who was fully human and fully divine, died to give us life.

Okay, so here we are on the other side of the Cross. Salvation is the realization of His death and resurrection in us. Now we are on the way to maturity…so what of sin? We aren’t sinners anymore, we are children. We don’t have a sin nature because it was crucified and buried. Our spirits are dead to sin and alive in Him. So does sin matter? Does it affect us? Are we holy?

We are holy because Jesus is holy. When God looks at us, He sees Jesus. However, there is a holiness that is ever perfecting itself by the direction of the Holy Spirit. We are to be perfect as He (Jesus) is perfect. Although we don’t have a sin nature since we are a new creation, we have a sin ‘habit’. Our thoughts and emotions have to learn what He thinks and feels. After all, we’ve been separated from God. How are we to know what He’s like? How are we to know how to behave? We could look at the Law, but the Law is incomplete and shallow. Jesus brought God’s kingdom rules to earth when He said, “If you look at a woman and think about having sex with her, you’ve committed adultery.” And “If you hate your brother you’ve murdered him”. Undoubtedly Jesus is angling for our hearts.

Our hearts are where it begins and ends. The entire reason God created time and space, earth and air, flora and fauna. To set the stage for relationship. What He enjoys with His Son and the Holy Spirit He wants to share with us. This is why the Fall was such a big deal. This is why Jesus’ death was such a big deal. Because His heart was on the line. The only reason He hates sin is because it hurts us. It keeps us from Him.

So sin is still detrimental. In the sense that it harms the relationship. We remember the Cross and the blood and His sacrifice, but the path to and through love is not about the hoops you jump through to get there. The path to love, to our hearts and to God’s heart, is desire. I don’t want to sin because I love Him. I don’t want to hurt my husband or my children because I LOVE them.  I don’t want to do the things that keep me from hearing His heartbeat, of knowing His voice. I’m after His heart.