All Sin Is The Same At Heart
"For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all."
~James 2:10
"For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."
~Romans 13:9-10
"For love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."
~1 John 4:7-8
All sins are not the same, and therefore cannot be judged the same, for both the degree of impact and the perpetrator's awareness of the Offense that is Sin varies, but all sin is the same at heart, is the same in essence. For PRIDE is the sin in which all sin is committed. It is the LIE or FALSE WITNESS that we first sell ourselves and then afterwards seek fervently to sell to all others:—that we are in some manner more significant than we actually are, and that we therefore ought to be awarded more regard than we actually deserve. And these untrue qualities and this undeserved esteem which we seek to award ourselves, are qualities and esteem which we STEAL from God, as we make ourselves, by this ruling, no less than god in our own sight, (thus committing IDOLATRY), and show ourselves as seeking no less than this supreme leverage over the lives of our peers. Pride is an ENVY and a COVETOUSNESS of God's sovereignty and omnipotence over our lives. And as pride and self-absorption dreams only ever of attaining that which is impossible to actually be made so; as its aspirations lie always and solely in the 'imagination of the heart', and can never be converted into reality, pride is therefore always inherently full of self-loathing, and is therefore full of HATE, which is truly MURDER, as Christ informs us: hate for oneself, because one cannot truly become the thing one seeks to be, (because one cannot become as God); hate for all mankind, insomuch as one cannot stand to think any other person their equal, least of all, their superior; and hate of course for God, because He forever remains that which one relentlessly desires to become; thus altogether depriving our souls of that REST or SABBATH which can only be found in Him. And as pride is self-love, it is therefore spiritual ADULTERY, as, being made by God, we belong to God by Law, but have now set our own selves up as god in His rightful place; forsaking our "First Love", as God calls Himself, and so DISHONORING Him as our FATHER, and making His Name VAIN, in pursuit of our own love which is ever fickle and conflicted in its flame of passion, as apt to scorch and burn and sear as it is to warm our heart. Satan, as we know, was the first to commit all sin in his sin of pride, when iniquity was found in him; when it was found in he who is the father of lies and the author of it.
Hence, when confronted with the Truth of Christ, if not repenting for our pride, and for our self-absorption, and readily confessing to have stolen of God's character insomuch as we have unjustly awarded so many of His perfect characteristics to our own selves, we inevitably choose, in going forward, to remain blind to similar sins that are similarly obvious. And if insisting upon justifying ourselves before God, by saying we have not sinned, we will naturally justify the behavior of all who have likewise sinned against the Most High, and be willfully blind to their offenses, lest, like king David, when he hastily answered the prophet Nathan, we outright condemn ourselves by condemning those like us. Hence, the wicked Pharisees were quick to receive the wicked Barabbas unto themselves, and thus justify the convicted scoundrel over innocent Christ. They, as we know, did not fully understand what they did, or they wouldn't have crucified Christ; but they certainly knew that their works were evil.
Profoundly ignorant as the average sinner undoubtedly is, such a sinner hopes against all hope, in spite of his intellect and conscience, to fully excuse himself in the day of judgment by a plea of total ignorance; just as we see him ever excusing himself in this life, wherever the Christian exposes his sins, by feigning a total incomprehension of how exactly he is guilty of having purposefully committed any wrong, even when charged in the very act. From his own lying lips, wrong is never his intention, it is only ever his unintentional mistake; thus, he may never be accused of being sinful, only “human”, only “imperfect”, “like everyone else”, which in his eyes includes the “self-righteous, judgmental and bigoted Christian”, whom the unrepentant sinner declares himself better than for not being one himself to harshly judge others for their many “harmless” and always “inconsequential flaws", as he will readily write sin off as, whenever he hears it branded as such. He denies any ubiquitous reality of sinister wickedness, dismissing it as either "primitive superstition" or "conspiracy theory", allowing ever only for a comparatively small population of psychologically messed up individuals, for whom we necessarily have prisons, and asylums, and rehabilitation centers and drugs, till a future cure be attained; and thus he subscribes to the ever perfecting evolution of man, and therefore as well to a future Utopia, ultimately a New World Order, where Man will finally transcend and triumph over all his age-old besetting flaws. This Fantasy the sinner must fervently wish, re-wish, and wish ever again to be true, and will all the more readily believe it to be an undeniable fact in direct proportion as this sinful world assimilates to that grand Lie; for such a sinner as we have described fervently refuses that strongly-loathed alternative which is to humble his proud and lofty heart before Sovereign God. Thus, he lies to his own self about his extreme ignorance—lies until he nearly believes it to be truth. He hopes, in the end, as a fail-safe, to excuse all of his wickedness by saying he didn't know any better, while secretly in his heart of hearts he knew perfectly well, but delighted in the temporal prosperity of his wickedness. Only let the average sinner gain such an indomitable advantage over the righteous, such that he forgets all fear in his great might, (like we are seeing and will continue to see in these latter days,) and his wickedness will pour forth from every facet of his being, unapologetically and unabashedly, betraying his former false claims of ignorance, ultimately to be used by God as a future judgment upon him, though he could hardly even suspect that to be the case at so indulgent and ostensibly victorious a moment as he then enjoys. Praise the Lord Who sees into the heart of man, and reads his every thought. When we are blind to our own sin, we are blind to the similar sins of this world. And those who cannot sincerely apologize to God, cannot, of course, sincerely apologize to their fellow man. And such sinners will never choose to believe anything which brings God into the picture, and demands He be recognized as the sovereign God that He is.
Osostrong 4 years ago
It's true that pride is blinding and sin among all sins. Pride is sly like the devil and even a Christian can be blinded by pride (at least a new one; speaking of myself.) Pride is what stopped me from seeing my covetousness; as the two go hand in hand. Glory to God for His tests and trials that expose these hidden sins and reveal them to us. Only then can we see these sins for what they are and use the opportunity to crucify the flesh and set ourselves straight; falling in line with God's will...not ours.
As you said, it is a form of IDOLATRY to put your will above God's, yet pride will tell you, "that's what God would want! or God doesn't care about that." or a plethora of other lies (choose one or as many that you think fit...to make you feel better about yourself...I'm speaking from experience here.)
Pride is what stops one from seeing any of their sins and ultimately keeps one from repentance. If it weren't for God's mercy and grace I would still be one of those; lying to myself and comparing myself with the world. Thank you for this post. We all need to be reminded and on guard.
1Peter 5:8 KJV “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:”