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Sinners by Choice

God said, "Thou shalt not?" and we continue to tell God, "we will." We continue to prefer the terminal disease of sin over the eternal love and glory of God who wants fellowship with us. And, we are sinners by choice.

We are sinners by choice because we consciously and knowingly refuse to do what we know we ought to do. We clearly see the road on which we ought to walk, but we refuse to walk it. We see the Christian fight in which we ought to engage, but we refuse to enter the conflict. We choose to go on and on in our sins. We understand this to be true as we witness its results everyday in our homes, our neighborhoods, our society, our nation and our world.

Turn to the Word and on its very first pages you will find burning warnings against defying and rebelling against God. In every book is a record of God's battle and fight with sin. We hear it in the thunders of Sinai, the sobs of Gethsemane, the agony of the cross. We hear it loudly reverberating all through the Word of God. David, when he sinned for a woman's beauty, he fell from the pinnacle of Jerusalem to a nation inundated with wars. And as sin reach beyond his control, it made his son Ammon a rapist and his beloved Absalom a murderer.

Sin is a divider; it separates us from God who wants us closer to Him. Sin makes us lose our love for God, Christ becomes unreal and the Bible a collection of myths. Behind every war that has ever been raged; in back of every home that is permeated with abuse, hatred and jealousy; in back of every juvenile delinquent, every prison convict, every suicide and every dissipated man, is the black scourge of sin.

When we look at our world and society, everywhere we turn we see the degenerative effect of man's sins. Today, we are paying for the support of schools which act as if there is no God. Rarely do two individuals agree on what is morally right or morally wrong. We are adrift without answers. No single authority rules our conduct. We are free to be prejudiced or promiscuous, to cheat and chisel.

The film industry portrays the depth of human dysfunction and violence: pornographic industry has become the leading sellers for home videotape viewers, abortions has mounted up to a silent holocaust of millions, illegitimate babies account for more and more births, incurable diseases such as AIDS have joined dozens of other such diseases rampaging out of control. The first decade of the 21st century is plagued with rapidly growing alcohol and drug addiction bringing an epidemic of child abuse, spousal abuse, families' dysfunction, spiraling divorce, soaring crimes and so on.

Man has chosen sin over and over again, rather than Christ. And as a consequence, the average man, woman and child are in greater danger today than ever before, of becoming victims of the criminal onslaught. Whether day or night, at work or play, our basic right to personal security and pursuit of happiness are steadily diminishing. Sin.

But, as Scripture warns, God cannot and will not tolerate sin. He allows us to run up a charge account of sin; we can live any way we choose, we can do all the things we want to do. We can steal, cheat, lie, be immoral and live as we please for what seems to us as a long time. God may seem indifferent and we may think He is dead or asleep or non-existent. We may think God is forgiving and therefore we can sin to our hearts' desire and that all will be well with our souls. But God is not mocked. We can go on ignoring Him and living as though He does not exist. But our charge account of sin has its limit. And when we have reached the limit set by God; we will have to pay our debt.

Rev. Saundra L. Washington, D.D., is an ordained clergywoman, veteran social worker, and Founder of AMEN Ministries. She is also the author of two coffee table books: Room Beneath the Snow: Poems that Preach and Negative Disturbances: Homilies that Teach which can be reviewed on her site. Her new book, Out of Deep Waters: My Grief Management Workbook, is expected to be available soon.

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