Sin, pride and what really matters.

As I said, I've been reading and studying the Book of Job. Last week I came across this passage in chapter 35.

6 If you sin, how does that affect (God)?
If your sins are many, what does that do to him?
7 If you are righteous, what do you give to him,
or what does he receive from your hand?
8 Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself,
and your righteousness only the sons of men.

That's kind of weird, don't you think? So many Christians are concerned over offending God with their personal and national actions, yet in this series of sentences it states that God is not really concerned about out sins. Or our righteousness

Pride is the core of all sin. I'm not alone in that observation. When you think you know better than your creator, you have an issue with pride. Most people do the wrong thing when they believe they are too smart to get caught or because they really don;t believe that what they are going to do is wrong, even when everyone else says it is. But even if you are doing the right thing, you can still be dealing with pride.

In the church, there is a real pride issue in the belief that it is possible to thwart the plan of God in the world through our actions. Many in the church justify that position by calling certain actions as "compromising the Gospel." In other words, you do something that goes counter to the culture of your church (e.g. going to see a particular movie or reading a certain book) and you will be told you are free to do that, but if others see you do it, you could cause them to stumble and "compromise the gospel."

Number one, that is a very weird definition of "gospel." Gospel means "good news" and that news is that Jesus Christ died for everyone's sin since the beginning of time, for now and into the future. It means that there is nothing we can do to make us any closer or send us farther away from God. Everything we have done wrong has been taken care of.

Second, if that is true, there is nothing we can do to make God love us even more.

What we do affects only us and those we connect with. That makes all our actions very personal in nature.