God's Response to Sin

Although they obviously never met, Sigmund Freud, agnostic and slightly demented psychologist, agreed on one point with the eminent theologian John Wesley: people are terrible.

Freud made an admirable, life-long habit of responding personally in letters to anyone who wrote him, even if they were not a fan. Pastor Oskar Pfister was a friend of Freud’s, but he also qualified as a critic. While he agreed with some of Freud’s psychoanalytic philosophies, others disturbed him.

How do we respond to people, sometimes even believers, who seem quite content with their sin and convinced that Jesus is more than happy to ignore all their indiscretions?

Many of us struggle with problems that have such a grip on us that we feel like we’ll never shake them off, so how do we find freedom?

Bill Wilson was a polite young man on the verge of getting shipped off to France for World War I. He was invited to a party before being deployed where someone handed him his first cocktail. He took one sip, and the rest was history.

What happens to our hearts and minds when we ignore small sins or delay dealing with embarrassing immoral habits?

Believers often point to God’s pain at our sin, but why exactly sin causes God pain is rarely examined in scripture and even more rarely discussed.

Max Letizi was 12 years old when he began to experience double-vision and then painful, reoccurring headaches.