They've taken sin out of the dictionary.

They've taken sin out of the dictionary. At least that's what they tell me. One particular source (Discipleship Journal's current issue) says that the new Oxford Junior Dictionary has taken the word out because--get this--there just isn't enough room for all words. In fact, they have taken out words like "chapel", "bishop", and "monarch" as well. Interesting choices. In their place, the Oxford Press has chosen words like "blog", "broadband", and "celebrity."

So this got me thinking, wouldn't it be great if we never had to use the word "sin" again because none of us had room for it (the action, not the word)? What if we chose to fill our hearts with so much good stuff--God stuff-- that sin became an obsolete thing? And shouldn't this be the desire of every true follower of Christ, to get to a point where our lives are so full of Him that they are so empty of sin?

Sadly, though, our lives more readily resemble the Dictionary than the disciples. We aren't removing sin from our culture. We're just replacing it with nicer words, words like "shortcomings", "inadequacies" or "misfortunes". These are words that make us feel better about ourselves but don't tell the truth about who we are. So, while all those words are true they just aren't complete. Today, we live in a culture that is more willing to embrace our celebrities and blog about our failures than we are willing to confront our sin. Till we learn to do this, we will continue to see the frustrating state of our condition before God as nothing more than an inconvenience to be overlooked rather than a reality to be faced. God help us if we forget that sin is our biggest problem...