Personal Sin
Personal sins are sins between you and God and sometimes one or a few other people. These include sexual immorality, worship of a false god, and stealing and lying. Like in many other religions, evil starts in the mind or heart and overflows into speech and finally gives birth to evil actions. Catching it in your thoughts before it gets further down the road is much more effective.
There are several aspects that make sin wrong. The first one because it was revealed to us that it is wrong and God is a deity of order and so there must be some rules. Being perfect means He cannot accept being part of any wrongdoing or let them happen without consequences.
God designed us to be a certain way physically, mentally, and spiritually and so sinning also goes against what we were created for and how we were meant to work on many levels. God forbids us from doing something wrong because it hurts us by breaking the way we were designed to work.
Most of these rules are the same across governments and major world religions because they destroy families and societies when people engage in them. If people are dishonest and no one trusts anyone then because of theft and deceit the inability to engage in legal contracts unravels a society. Why own property or develop anything of value if you have a very low likelihood that you can keep it?
God doesn’t allow the worship of false gods because they are not moral or good in any sense or have good plans for us. Read mythology if you do not accept this idea. Furthermore only God has the right to accept worship because He alone created us. Lastly, God admits He is jealous and does not want us to cheat on Him the same way people cheat on their spouses.
Sin is said to when fully formed result in physical and spiritual death. The same sin committed over and over again is similar in concept to what modern psychology calls addiction. Sin does not satisfy us so that we continue to do greater or different sins. The only thing that will satisfy us is God in our lives.
There are strong similarities in sins with the Bible comparing sexual sins to worshipping false gods. The underlying sin is deception and rebellion against God. God offered us a literal paradise and cleverly made it so we could have free choice and still not sin, but we destroyed this possibility by not following that one rule. Any of us would have made the same mistake.
God gave us the ability to resist sin but at the same time no one has ever lived their entire life without sinning. It is important to note that, although no one has or will ever live without any sin other than God Himself, everybody could keep from sinning if they chose to not rebel against God even at any cost.
Whenever we sin, we choose to sin and are always given a way to keep from sinning. We are always the responsible and guilty party. God has no connection with evil and does not tempt us to do evil ever for any reason.
Only Jesus lived without sinning and since He was and is God that was enough of a sacrifice for God the Father to reconcile within Himself two of the primary aspect of who He is - merciful and perfectly just. Sin always costs and without Christ’s sacrifice applied to our sins we suffer for the evil we have done in the underworld or hell.
God made His plan available to anyone so they could easily escape this fate. Hell was not designed for people originally and heaven is big enough for all people of all times. The sacrifices of the Old Testament were never what was going to save anyone. Although they showed remorse this way, as animals were worth a lot of money then, they would never be great enough sacrifice to redeem any one person, let alone the whole human race.
God was always interested in people’s genuine life changes where they first did evil and then made a complete break of it and then felt guilty and asked for forgiveness much more than He wanted people to sacrifice animals. God does not like people who are unwilling to fully commit to Him. He would prefer people not be Christian in name only if their heart is not in it. This seems much like how when you get married often times the spouse doesn’t want to accept being your second choice or backup plan.
Group Sin
Group sins are committed on a vast scale by a whole major group of people like a community, a company, or a government. These include mass murder, destruction of the environment or financial crimes. There have been many evil things that have happened throughout history and they have mostly corresponding individual sins.
Throughout prophecy God constantly calls out those leaders who do not take care of widows and orphans. Furthermore Jesus clarifies, extends, and simplified this down to do what you want others to do to you. Loving and having peace with the people of the world is part of having peace with God and yourself.
We are to help those rejected by society but even to the point of our doing without and even for those who are our enemies. Jesus even makes a direct connection to Himself when He says when you helped those in need, you are helping Him as well.
Again Jesus continues to focus on the heart instead of the action. He talks about how it is better for those to give out of poverty than out of wealth. He also says that Mary’s gift of crying at Jesus feet was more necessary than Martha’s taking care of His needs for food and lodging.
Jesus Himself might be considered homeless in today’s society as he had no regular job or place to live. Several times when they were to pay a tax, Jesus told them to follow it but He made it clear that the more important thing was to follow what God said for us to do. Jesus did not become a political or military leader even though many begged for Him to do so.
Jesus chose other people to start the first churches. Jesus combined the ideas of taking care of people’s physical needs and their need for forgiveness of sins (the second was more important though.) He also was very peaceful in all His miracles. He even healed the person who one of the disciples injures when Jesus is betrayed.
Jesus healed people and forgave them. His kingdom was to be based not on merit, opportunity, or status. The point was that ranks have no bearing in Heaven nor do they in the Church. There is to be no separation or distinction between anyone in the church. Even leaders are chosen by their spiritual maturity and not their outside rank or status. Christ was for radical equality too.
God’s focus was on those suffering and suffered a very painful and humiliating death for even those who committed some of the most severe crimes. The two people on either side of Jesus also dying on crosses at the time admitted their guilt and Jesus innocence. Christ told them they would be with Him in heaven the next day.
This does not mean the rich and powerful cannot be saved but like all people’s salvation only as a miracle can any of us conquer our pride and rebellion against God with divine intervention.
The thing is that being rich, powerful, or famous does not give you any special place in Christianity. It gives you more distractions and makes thinking like God and making time for God harder. We should not spend our lives accumulating wealth even if it is to give to the Church.
The real obstacle to salvation is our unwillingness to follow rules and humble ourselves before God. We need not conquer monetary, physical, or virtual empires. We need to surrender our hearts to God. Society will only change once we truly embrace what God has planned for us. But this can be only accomplished one person at a time.