The seriousness of Sin: Lev. 4-6

"Don't touch that!"  "Is that really what happened?"  "You didn't really promise THAT, did you?"

Oh the joys of parenting...

Some days it feels like it's one unending nag session.  The problem is that these things really are a problem.  God calls each of these daily annoyances sin and requires a sacrifice of his people to atone for it.  They might be unintentional sins, but they're still sin.  Then there's cheating.  That's not just sin, that's injury to others.  That means you have to pay back what you stole and 20% more and then you can work on atonement.  (I need to work on teaching that to my kids).

The atonement is a big deal too and the more important you become the more significant the atonement must be.  I don't know that we take sin as seriously as God does.  Breaking God's laws resulted in a significant personal loss.  That might explain why the Priest and the Levite passed by the guy in the story of the good Samaritan.  If he was dead, it was going to be a pain in the neck to get clean again--no excuse, but it sheds some light on it. 

The sacrificial system is gone, but each of our sins--each time we miss the mark--those sins were laid on Christ during His crucifixion.  When we really "get it" we begin to see how amazing grace truly is.  This helps us when we go to forgive someone too.  We don't blow off their sin against us.  It was serious enough that Christ died for it and that sin will either be covered by the blood of Christ's sacrifice or will be judged for eternity.  Additional punishment by us is not necessary.  We can let it go and let God deal with sin.  He's really the only one who has a right.

As for training, that never ends.  Back to parenting...