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Writer's pictureHills and Valleys

The Severity of Sin

We delight in our passions, our passions are where we spend our time and fundamentally what we spend our time on shapes us.

So what is shaping you?

The Way of the Righteous and the Wicked

1 Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree

planted by streams of water

that yields its fruit in its season,

and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does, he prospers.

4 The wicked are not so,

but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish.


Psalm 1 gives us two and only two ways to live, righteously and wickedly.

So this must mean that there are those who are blessed with righteousness and others are cursed with wickedness?

In verse 1 we see a steady progression from acknowledging sin around you to being fully immersed in and living in unrepentant sin.

As John Piper puts it - by the end of v1, man is not just being influenced, but is now the influencer and this is such dangerous place to be - we never want to be in a position where we are leading others into sin and ultimately away from Christ.

But whether an accident, getting caught up in something you shouldn’t be doing, or purposefully knowing that something is sinful and doing it anyway, unrepentant sin is what drives us to separation from God, it ultimately means we’ve missed something about the Gospel. 

And long game, wow it’s gonna harm you as a person, harm your attitude towards God, and your relationship with Him.

But blessed is he who falls not into these things.

It is a happy state to not fall into sin.

It is a happy state to be forgiven, to understand to weight of sin and to flee into the arms of Christ.

The blessed discerns where there is sin, and makes a conscious decision not to get involved,

the righteous know the depths of their heart, where they could fall short and don’t even risk it.

Because delighting in the lifestyle of the Lord is the fundamental alternative to sin.

We all can identify where we struggle with sin in our lives and we can try to impliment practical ways to help ourselves, but so often we don’t want to. 

We don’t want to flee from sin cause deep down, we love where we are and how it makes us feel at the time. 

Sexual sin, gossiping, speeding, lying, drunkenness . Sins we think are big and small yet can often overlook because it’s hard to deal with.

Trust me I know.

I was that person stuck in unrepentant sin. I hadn’t understood the gospel. Hadn’t been praying for a shift of my life from my way to His.

Even when I knew I was wrong or stuck I struggled to truly feel repentant and to want change in my life.

Until one day the scales fell from my eyes and I saw that I was not living a life that was honouring God in any way shape or form. I needed to reorientate my outlook, I ended my relationship that was so far from what God had intended for us. I joined a church that loves the Gospel and wants to see it transform lives. Of course I’m still struggling with sin but in a much better place to tackle it.

Are you living with an attitude that grace covers it all?

Do you make excuses for your sin to justify it?

Are you ignoring the practical support for your sin cause you don’t want to seem weak?


We delight in our passions, our passions are where we spend our time and fundamentally what we spend our time on shapes us.

So what is shaping you?

Because either we are conformed to this world, or we are transformed by Jesus.

A great thing is that as we are transformed to become more like Jesus we are actually becoming more like our true selves, as God intended us to be, mini Christs.

We have the fundamental alternative to sin yet often we ignore it

We have the power to walk not in the way of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. 

We have the power to delight in the law of the Lord and be transformed to become more like Jesus.

So are you going to use the power gifted to you, to become more like Christ or to sit in the way of the world?


By Caitlin Cousins.

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