We have no middle ground, no foggy gray area where we can sin a little without suffering spiritual decline. That is why we must repent and come to Christ daily on submissive knees so that we can prevent our bonfires of testimony from being snuffed out by sin.
Contemplation in the age of Auschwitz and Dachau, Solovky and Karaganda is something darker and more fearsome than contemplation in the age of the Church Fathers. For that very reason, the urge to seek a path of spiritual light can be a subtle temptation to sin. It certainly is sin if it means a frank rejection of the burden of our age, an escape into unreality and spiritual illusion, so as not to share the misery of other men.
A tender heart is a wakeful, watchful heart. It watches against sin in the soul, sin in the family, sin in the calling, sin in spiritual duties and performances.
God has decided the rules of life, whereby you don't trespass on anybody else's rights, and sin is something that upsets the balance of things. There are three types of sin: sin against yourself; sin against other people; and sin against God. People often sin against themselves and others and misbehave with God, too.
The Middle Ages hangs over history's belt like a beer belly. It is too late now for aerobic dancing or cottage cheese lunches to reduce the Middle Ages. History will have to wear size 48 shorts forever.
In my mind, if you went back to the Middle Ages, in Italy they'd be speaking Middle Age Italian. And at that point, it would obviously be indecipherable for us, but for the people of that time, it was just normal talking.
And she didn't once say anything about this being a sin. It used to be I got the word sin slapped in my face every time I did something wrong, but come on, when you live in a sin-free family with sin-free parents and a sin-free sister, well, you can't help but sin a little extra on their behalf.
Every one of our sinful actions has a suicidal power on the faculties that put that action forth. When you sin with the mind, that sin shrivels the rationality. When you sin with the heart or the emotions, that sin shrivels the emotions. When you sin with the will, that sin destroys and dissolves your willpower and your self-control. Sin is the suicidal action of the self against itself. Sin destroys freedom because sin is an enslaving power.
I'd love sloth. I wish sloth would come home and visit me once in a while. I don't consider laziness a sin at all.
True repentance begins with KNOWLEDGE of sin. It goes on to work SORROW for sin. It leads to CONFESSION of sin before God. It shows itself before a person by a thorough BREAKING OFF from sin. It results in producing a DEEP HATRED for all sin.
Having recognition is not a sin, growing up is no sin, be star is not a sin, have technical skills is not a sin. To evolve in what is wrong is also a process of maturing.
To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. To live without sin is the dream of an angel. Everything terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation.
When I repent, here is where it starts. I try to name my sin as honestly and as specifically as possible. Here is what repenting is not. It is not excusing my sin, minimizing my sin, it's not rationalizing my sin ... Repentance is getting painfully honest with God.
Sin is cruelty and injustice, all else is peccadillo. Oh, a sense of sin comes from violating the customs of your tribe. But breaking custom is not sin even when it feels so; sin is wronging another person.
I think that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, but the Bible also teaches that pride is a sin, jealousy is a sin, and hate is a sin, evil thoughts are a sin. So I don't think that homosexuality should be chosen as the overwhelming sin that we are doing today.
We are all afflicted with our own spiritual blindness. That's what sin does to us, and we all sin. We would do better to look into our own hearts and deal with our own sin before we condemn the sins of others.