Yes! Is it good? No, but it is OK. I saw yes because we know the standard, we have a goal, we are hoping to not sin. Just like one who decides to diet has a goal of losing 100 lbs, or the athlete has a goal to run a 4 min mile. Both are attainable, but they also both might take 10 years to achieve. So should the athlete beat themselves up if they run a 9 min mile on day 1? Of course not. They have a goal and intent of getting their one day, but it’s OK to fail the standard you hope to achieve.
When we sin, we are failing. Is it OK? Yes! God knows we are dust, we are frail humans, He created us as such. I don’t think He wants perfect people (or He probably would have created us that way), but He does seem to enjoy growth. Just like when you have a child. You don’t expect them to write a doctoral dissertation when they are 1 month or year old. Nor are you disappointed in them when they can’t even say more than 1 word. You see them growing, and it brings you joy to watch them grow. Is it OK to not be able to write essays at one week old? Is it OK to sin as a Christian?
If you focus on how bad you are or how much you fail, you are only going to waste time and energy and health. Focus on what is whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things. The past is done, it cannot be changed, it no longer affects you. If the runner beat themselves up for not running 4 min mile this time, they might not ever achieve it. Some might even give up and say “well I just can’t do it”, or “I did even slower this time (failed greater) than I did last month”. Growth can be like the stock market with ups and downs, but the important thing is the trend up. Life can be the same way. It is possible that you might not ever reach that 4 min mile goal. You might only get to a 4:30 or 5 min mile (which is still pretty fast), but you might get to the 4 min mile or even faster if you train for it! But if you beat yourself up and give up, I guarantee you won’t be able to run a 4 min mile, and probably won’t even be able to keep the 9 min mile you started at. God wants to use you in the future, based off of the now, not your past!
We make sin and God into such a game almost, with all these rules. Sin is not this terrible thing that cleaned off by following rules and making proclamations. Sin is as simple as you stealing glory from God. When you do what you think is best, you are saying that you are the god of your universe and you are able to make your own decisions and you should receive glory as this god. But all glory belongs to God. Taking glory from God not only attempts to defame God’s holiness, but it hurts us also. God wants to fix that problem we created.
When your child screws something up or breaks one of your rules, you don’t want, or require suffering of them to satisfy you. But you can’t do nothing, there is a problem that needs fixed. There are multiple ways of fixing things, but punishment is one of the tools used to fix things. Sometimes revealing or explaining to them the gravity of their flaw is enough for them to change, or more importantly, want to change.
I am sure God could stop a murderer’s arms from stabbing another person. But what would that accomplish? The man’s life is saved for now, but the evil heart and intent of the other is still there. God wants to fix that heart. And there are times that God does stop things from happening. But for the most part, God uses the current situation ultimately for His glory and wants to transform that persons heart, not just stop that murder attempt.
I don’t believe that God cannot violate our free will, or why the fact is that so many believe we have such a things free will, that God cannot control. I do think that 99% of the time, God lets us keep our free will, just like 99% of the time, miracles don’t happen in a supernatural sense where God pauses physics as we understand it and amends/manipulates it. But He does do that, and to me I have read verses where it appears that God controls people or takes away their free will. But it seems to me that God doesn’t like to violate man’s free will, nor does God like to pause our physics. I would guess that if He ‘intervened’ too much, He might as well just create robots. But to me it seems He intervenes just enough to maximize His glory, and work through His creation, instead of around it.
It seems to me in the OT God would end sin fairly often, by killing the people, ending their ability to keep perverting His creation. God speaks of punishing the people for the sins of them and their offspring for generations. I don’t see that as God making the offspring suffer for the sins committed by the fathers. But rather, if you sin, and keep sinning, and teach you kids to sin, it will always be punished. And by punished, again, I don’t mean, making those suffer for acts committed or thoughts had. Rather, to fix the problem of the sin. Again in the OT, it seems the fix was to just end that person. But we don’t see a lot of ending of people for their sin in the NT. I would kind of say God ‘changed’ up His strategy, but it’s more than that. Though in the NT, God no longer seems to end people, rather He wants to transform them. End the sin by transforming them.
This was not an audible God called last min though. The plan of transforming man was known since the Garden of Eden, when it is prophesized that God would crush the serpent. It seems the entire 4000ish thousand years before Jesus, God was building up the song for that crescendo that was the death of Jesus on the cross. It was God’s will to crush Jesus. I think God wanted to show His love to man, and the greatest way was to enter His creation and serve it, put it first, live for it, and die for it, and for God’s glory. The OT had to be the way it was to build up to what Jesus came to represent. The lamb as a sacrifice couldn’t have come without the Passover, and that couldn’t have come without becoming slaves ect.
We know there is no magic when the priest would tell the goats the sins of the people so the scape goat ‘held’ the sins of the people and they could watch their sins walk away and disappear. That is clearly for the benefit of man. We like to “get things off our chest”. So God provided a way for us to get things off our chest where it is remembered no more, separated as far as the east is from the west. Jesus did this for us. We also feel dirty from sin and bogged down by it, and cleansing language makes us feel clean. Once you bathe, you are no longer concerned with the dirt going down the drain. So why do we beat ourselves up about sin of the past? The priest also were a mediator between God and man, and helper of man to achieve that goal of not sinning. Jesus became that. Once you are saved, once your eyes are opened to the err or your ways, we now are on that training mission, trying to achieve that goal of maybe one day not sinning. Like to runner above who wants to run a 4 min mile, we are going to sin, and it is OK. I do think that God has the powers to make us not sin, using supernatural means or controlling us, but I don’t think He wants to do that. He wants us to grow, like children. He doesn’t want that doctoral dissertation because He doesn’t need it. There is nothing we can do or give that is new to Him, and everything we do know or share, came from Him! He doesn’t need us to be perfect on day 1 of our transformation (or He would make us that way). Just think of you own children and how God uses life to echo Himself to us. Like marriage is a great representation of His love for us, the parent child relationship is a great one too! Just like you would not be disappointed if you child came out of the womb dancing, God is not disappointed when we sin daily. You might even be disappointed and feel unneeded if your child came out of the womb dancing and doing high level algebra. You enjoy watching your child grow, and helping them do that. I am not saying God needs us like a parent wants to feel needed by their children, but it seems to maximize the glory received by God, He wants us to grow and more importantly to help us grow and be a part of it. And since God is a major part of it and everything we do we owe to Him, He should get the glory for it.
Seeking God 