Many people carry with them a weight of guilt over things they’ve done in their past. People often feel shame about things they’ve done, even decades ago. I’ve had people express to me the feeling that they could never be forgiven. As a result, they can’t forgive themselves, and their past continues to haunt them. There’s hope in the Bible but it comes as we confront an even greater sin that most people aren’t even conscious of.

1. The greatest sin is not treating God as God

In the Old Testament, the first of the Ten Commandments is “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). The message was essentially, treat the God who has revealed Himself in Scripture as number one in your life. When Jesus was asked, He responded similarly, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38). Every sin we’ve ever committed flows from this deeper, more fundamental sin. Treating the most powerful Being in the universe as an afterthought is the sin beneath all the other sins.

2. The greatest sin is rejecting the greatest act of love

You would think that God would reject people who rejected Him. But as an act of love toward people who didn’t deserve it, God came into this world in the person of Jesus Christ. Out of love for us, He lived a perfect life of love and died as a criminal in order to pay the penalty for our sins. As Romans 5:8 says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Imagine giving your life to save someone, and their response was “No, thanks, I’m good.” I’d be frustrated if I gave up my lunch for someone who tossed it in the garbage, let alone someone who rejected my death for them. If not treating God as God is the worst sin, then rejecting that God’s greatest act of love might be the worst version of that worst sin.

3. Forgiveness is found in receiving God’s greatest act of love and treating God as God

As we have dug down beneath the sins that most people think of, the path forward becomes more clear. Tim Keller famously captured the essence of the Bible’s good news in these words: “We're far worse than we ever imagined, and far more loved than we could ever dream.” When we fail to treat God as God, the forgiveness He offers doesn’t feel real. His forgiveness has no weight in our lives because He has no weight in our minds. When we confess our casual attitude toward God as sin, we begin to listen to what He has to say and are confronted by what He has done. What God has done has send His Son to take the penalty for our sin and provide for our forgiveness. That’s why David can say, “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32:5).

Jesus died on the cross for all your sins. When you purpose to treat God as God and acknowledge by faith what He did to provide for your forgiveness, there’s a weight that’s lifted. The psalmist expressed it like this: “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

Can you see how you’re far worse than you ever imagined? Do you believe that you’re far more loved than you could ever dream? It’s because of that love that we can be forgiven freely by a gracious God.

In awe of Him,

Paul