Sin ~ An Action or An Attitude???

I use Oswald Chambers "My Utmost For His Highest" updated language version, as a devotional.    I wanted to share the section below from October 5th:

When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were clean-living, moral, and upright, He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other. He looked at something we do not see, namely, the nature of man (see John 2:25 ).



The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, "I am my own god." This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis— my claim to my right to myself.

http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/my-utmost-for-his-highest/10/05/devotion.aspx?year=2009

By default, being born into sin, we are not born into a world where we automatically have a relationship with God.  That was how it was in the Garden of Eden.  Now we are born into a world ruled by a fallen angel, Satan, who fell because he wanted to be god.  He wanted God's power and knowledge.  So God kicked him to the curb.

Now Satan roams the earthly realm and since he can't hurt God because God is the Almighty, Satan does the next best thing, he tries to steal those that God loves.  We are so self-centered that we think it's all about us, when actually it's really a showdown between God and Satan and we are just pawns.

(I recommend the "Sacred Romance" for more detail on this bigger battle that we are often oblivious to) 

Satan wants to steal the thing God loves the most - us.  And he can do that by blinding us to God's truths and through that blindness and our own stubbornness us choosing to be forever separated from God (unknowingly through our blindness). 

God can't be in the presence of sin. He is too pure. So he saved us through Jesus' sacrifice.  And we have to accept that gift...he can hand it to us, but until we take it from Him, until we choose it (no one else can choose it for us),  it is not ours, we have not received it.  Once we accept His gift of salvation, then Satan can no longer steal us from God, we are God's for eternity. 

Satan can still try to blind us to God's truths and influence our selfish nature towards our own ends.  And that is the definition of sin in the scripture above, thinking we have a right to ourselves, to do what we want, to be our own god, instead of humbling ourselves and looking to God for guidance.

Who do you think can better guide you:

• the one that has alway existed, for all time
• who created all things
• knows all things
• knows your choices
• and according to Romans 8:28 can work all things out for your good and His Glory

OR are you going to trust:

• your "knowledge and experience" that spans FAR LESS than even 100 years
• you who is fallible and vulnerable to deception due to selfish desires and past hurts
• you who doesn't even know what's going to happen 5 minutes from now
• but who tries to plan 20 years into the future??????? 
• (based on your current limited viewpoint OF the future. :)

Seems like a no-brainer to me.