What’s the worst sin you can think of?

Murder?

Rape?

Abusing a child?

Torture?

Those are awful sins, but what if there’s a sin that leads to those sins? Wouldn’t that one be even worse?

There is a sin that leads to those sins and every other sin. At first glance though, it doesn’t seem quite so bad. At least not as bad as the sins I mentioned.

The root sin, the one that leads to all the others is simply this: forgetting God.

Right before the nation of Israel was going to cross the Jordan River to enter the land God had promised to give them, Moses told them:

If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 8:19-20)

If we forget God, then we will find another “god” to worship and bow down to. We have to. We don’t have a choice. We will always look for life, for purpose, for meaning, for joy, for fulfillment, for happiness, etc. If we choose to not look for God to provide what we need, then we must look elsewhere.

“Doing life” isn’t easy, but it is simple. God instructs us to seek Him and worship Him only. He invites us to find life in Him. It’s what we are designed for.

But He never makes us do it His way. He doesn’t coerce us. He invites us.

And so we can choose to forget Him. We can choose to turn away and seek life elsewhere. And when we do, we invite destruction.

It’s sad how often we choose to live our lives on our own terms. We do whatever we can to order our lives in such a way to maximize our pleasure and happiness and minimize our pain. And because we must have the cooperation of others, we attempt to manipulate and control and even sin against those around us.

And that invites destruction. Marriages are destroyed. Families are destroyed. Churches are destroyed. Nations are destroyed.

The longer we do life apart from God, the more destruction we experience and the harder it is to break free. When we turn from God and naturally seek life elsewhere, we begin to believe lies about ourselves and about life. Our feelings and experiences become more true to us than what God says is true. And we end up living in bondage to the idols we’ve created for ourselves.

We thought our idols would give us life, but they were never capable of it. They promised us life, but delivered destruction.

Only God can promise life and deliver it.

Maybe you’re experiencing more destruction than life today. For whatever the reason, you turned from God, forgot Him and sought life in other places. A person. A career. Sex. Food. Possessions. Whatever. The list is endless.

The solution is always the same. We return to the God we forgot. We confess that we’ve been seeking life in the wrong places. We cry out for His help to turn from our idols and seek Him above everything else.

Change may not be immediate. In fact, it probably won’t be. We’ve built for ourselves a structure of beliefs (wrong ones) and habits that may have become very ingrained in us. The “truth” we think we know about life may in fact not be truth at all. We must allow God’s truth to penetrate our lives and reorder how we think and behave and feel.

We didn’t get into this mess in a day and we won’t get out of it in a day.

But we can take the first step today. We can turn back to the One who graciously offers real life. Life as it was meant to be. Life found in Christ alone. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life…”

The invitation to experience life is offered to you today. Will you accept it?