Living a Clean Life:

The Way I See Things

As any good Christian knows, God wants us to try our best to be like him. Which means living a pure, sinless life. But, it is impossible to live a completely sinless life, so we are expected to do our best and avoid sin whenever possible. There are so many different sins though, and that is one main reason people are reluctant to become Christian.

When you are a child you learn the difference between right and wrong. Those two things become incorporated more into your life as you grow older. Some decisions are easy, such as knowing whether or not to take a cookie without permission. But some are more difficult, like if someone confides something serious in you and you don't know if you should tell someone. And even when you know what the right choice is, you can sometimes be reluctant to choose it, because you would rather hang out with your friends then go to church or something along those lines.

Every person has a different opinion on what is considered sin. I for one, am very relaxed with what I consider to be sin. Growing up, my family always went to church on Sunday mornings. As I grew older though, we stopped going. We never thought of it as a sin to skip church. Now, we are just starting to attend again, and it feels good to go, but it never was a major problem in the first place. Some people though, would be shocked at the idea of not going to church.

God tells us to live a clean life, and to some that means sticking to the Ten Commandments. But haven't we all coveted something in our lives? Haven't we all worked on the Sabbath? In certain types of Christianity, walking ten yards is considered work. You have to have all your food prepared the day before and any work you need finished must be done by sundown Friday.

The Bible says this about living a clean life:

And he went on, "What comes out of a person is what defiles, for evil designs come out of the heart: theft, murder, adultery, jealousy, greed, maliciousness, deceit, indecency, slander, pride and folly. All these evil things come from within and make a person unclean." (Mk 7:20-23)

So, according to the Bible, just thinking of evil qualifies as a sin. Many Christians now don't bother themselves with any of that, and have come up with their own ideas on what sin is. You hear new stories every day. When you have a child without being married, it is a big sin in the Bible, but in modern society people are having children out of wedlock every day. No big deal you think, just another small sin.

What I'm trying to say is, everybody has their own opinion on what sin is, but the only opinion that matters is God's. You can have your own rules and follow them perfectly, but those rules won't matter to Him. All that he wants to know is if you followed his rules.

Whose rules are you following?