How Many Sins Does it Take?

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     James 2:10 says, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”

     I use a little acronym for certain prayers, called CATS.  It begins with confession, then adoration, then thanksgiving and finally supplication.  I used to start with Adoration and had t he acronym, ACTS, but then changed it after one of my friends pointed out that the confession needed to be first before you went on to any other part of the prayer.  I like to use little acronyms to help me remember things, like PUFPTAT, helps me remember the feasts of Israel, passover, unleavened bread, first fruits,pentecost, tabernacle, atonement and trumpet.  Well, it helps me anyway.

     In thinking about the CATS. formula, I was also thinking of how many sins does it take to be guilty?  The above passage denotes that it takes only one.  With any one sin, you become guilty of the whole law.  Some may think that it isn’t fair to be charged with the whole law being broken, when you did only one sin, but that’s God’s standard.  If I think one evil thought about another person, I am guilty.  Of course, there are the sins of commission, in other words bad things that I do that are against God’s standards.  If I don’t love one another, or pray for one another, or bear one another’s burdens, I am guilty.  If I have evil thoughts about praying for fire to come down and consume my antagonizer, I have sinned.  If I am proud of things then I have sinned.  Sins of commission rightly condemn us but there are also the sins of omission.  These are things that God has commanded to do and we fail to do them.  How about loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, 24/7?    When It comes down to it, I need not be concerned about the injustice of being convicted by only one sin, because I have already heaped a bunch of them on my account before breakfast, let alone the rest of the day.  We often begin our prayers with, “Forgive me for my sins…”  We think that is enough and will include a bucket full of sins.  We commit the sins one by one and should therefore ask forgiveness one by one.  I have found that the best thing to do is immediate prayer for forgiveness at the time the sin is committed rather than waiting for any opportunity for the bucket load later.  In any case, James has pointed out why we need to have a Savior who has paid the price for all of our sins.  We can undoubtedly praise God for His forgiveness and that we can cast all of our cares upon Him any time of the day or night .