One of the Arp family’s recent acquisitions has been the addition of streaming Net Flix on our family television. This was coupled with the cutting of our cable, but it has proven to be a fun addition. Aside from my kids getting to watch cartoons I grew up with it has also been fun for Crystal and I by getting access to documentaries and other educational movies any time we want. One of the things that Net Flix also does for you is set-up a recommendation category based upon your viewing habits. One of the movies it has brought to my attention is “Sin Nombre“, a Spanish language film about a young girl attempting to make it from Honduras to the United States. To tell you the truth I really haven’t had much interest in watching the movie (I might eventually), but it really is the title that jumps off the page at me every time. I realize that the word “sin” in Spanish is not the same as the word “sin” in English, but it got me thinking a bit.

From my three years of Spanish in high school I do remember that the word sin means “without” in English. Pretty profound if you ask me. We know that Romans 6:23 tells us, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”, but I think it could be put even more simply. Sin leaves us without. It leaves us without freedom, without health, without sustainable relationships and ultimately without God. If we choose to lead a life of sin, we are ultimately choosing to live without God…apart from love itself.

Now I am one of those who always grew up in the church. I never really had a huge rebellious stage or anything like that. But sometimes, having grown up learning from those around me, I was able to lead a life of hypocrisy with the best of them. I was putting on a righteous exterior while ignoring the inside. “Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean (Matthew 23:26).” In these moments, although everything may have liked fine from the outside perspective, I was very much leading my life without God.

And that is what sin does to us. For some reason it has the ability to convince us that we can do it on our own. That we are the masters of our fate and the commanders of our destiny and that we ultimately know better than anyone else. Life can be lived without…but it is meant to be redeemed from within. God has given us so much. He has surrounded us with loving family or friends, supportive brothers and sisters in Christs and he even gave His own life for us. And yet we let sin replace all of that and we choose to live without.

The s word is a dangerous subject. But brushing up on my Spanish a bit helped me see it in an entirely new light. I choose to live within the divine gift and without sin.