The Scars Of Sin

God calculates the consequence of sin based on His purity, righteousness, and justice.   #daybydaylw   Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org!   ~~~   We can’t help but notice with what terseness the narrative takes in 2 Samuel 12:15 and 16. “Nathan went to his house. And the Lord afflicted the child.” It is matter of fact. Almost uncomfortably so, given the nature of what is taking place. After all, what has this child done to receive the destiny that has fallen to him. This seems wrong. So let’s deal with this head on. First, the child was not innocent. No one is born innocent, or in a positive state or even neutral state, with God. The baby carried the stain of sin. The difference between the baby and someone mature is the ability to discern between the right and the wrong, the mental ability to knowingly rebel or be defiant. Absolutely this is a tragic event from our perspective. Yet we must also keep in tension that God was absolutely just and righteous in His actions. When something takes place in my life that I am not able to untangle, I have to trust that the Judge of all the earth does what is right. And even in this case, God was just in punishing David by pronouncing death to his child. Since David led the enemy nations to mock God, David will be publicly and personally humiliated with discipline from his sin. Once again, David’s guilt of sin is removed, but not the consequences. So we must take heed that we reap what we sow, and what we are to learn from this here is that oftentimes we do not know the severity of what we are sowing. Would David had stopped lust in its tracks if he could have predicted the devastation that was caused by His sin? I don’t know. What more prediction of devastation do we need than “the wages of sin are death,”? But what we must know is that sin and rebellion against God carries consequences, and more times than not those consequences are far more weighty than we ever want to admit. We calculate the reaping of what we sow based on comparison to others. “Surely it won’t bring that much harm, I mean, after all, I am a pretty good guy. I have done a lot of good for the kingdom of God.” We think that since the seed of sin is so small, then so too will the fruit of sin be small, and we forget the whole idea of sowing and reaping, and that what is put down into the ground may be tiny, but while in the soil it is nurtured and fed, until it grows into something we never imagined. God calculates the reaping according to His purity and righteousness and justice. He has to or else he would not be righteous. Take heed, that when you sin you will bear the scars of sin. You can be forgiven, but you cannot undo the consequences.