[This is an excerpt from the Kairos talk ‘A Christian’]

I want to tell you a little something about sin.  There’s two kinds of sin; there’s the Big ‘S’, and the little ‘s’.  The little ‘s’ is all the things we usually think of as sins, like lying, cheating and stealing, and sleeping with your neighbor’s wife; even murder, falls under this category.  While murder is a big sin, it’s on a completely different level from the Big “S”.  The Big S is Sin with a capital “S”.

The Big S is the letter that begins the word Self.  Seems like Self is the biggest obstacle standing between us and God.  The Big S is also the first letter of Satan.  I hate to capitalize Satan’s name, but it’s his name.  Let me tell you what happened to Satan.  He was one of God’s favorite angels, he was called Lucifer, the angel of light.  Our Hispanic brothers know La Luz is the light, and that was Satan’s name. 

Like I said, he was one of God’s favorites until he decided he could be like God.  He said, “I can be like this Most High.”  And God threw him out of heaven, along with all his demonic angels.  Oh, there was a big battle, but guess who won?  And you know why God threw him out of heaven?  It was because Satan wanted to do what Satan wanted to do.  He wanted to BE God.

The Big S is me looking God in the eye and saying, “I know what you want me to do, but I’m not going to do it.  I’m going to do what I want to do.  I’m going to control my own life.”  And you know, the crazy thing is, when you’re starting down that road, the things you want to do are often apparently good things, like going to church, serving others, feeding the hungry, visiting the prisoners.  It’s not about what you do.  It’s about the attitude of your heart.  Don’t forget.  God is looking at your heart.  You may be able to fool other people, but you can’t fool God.