The other morning I went to get up from my sofa and my hand accidentally knocked over my coffee. This is not the first time—nor, I am certain, will it be the last—that this has happened.
Something I didn’t realize when we so carefully picked the color for our new sofa (years ago now) was that it was the perfect color to spill coffee upon.
I didn’t actually really like the color when it arrived (don’t you hate that? Buying furniture is one of my least favorite things to do!) but it’s been very practical when it comes to those occasional times I’ve spilled my coffee, for it leaves no stains and no indication that coffee was spilled upon it because…it’s the exact same color as coffee.
As I bent down to clean up the coffee on the sofa and then the bit that also spilled on the carpet (a color which is not so forgiving), I had this thought that coffee on the sofa is a bit like some of the sins we tend to write off.
They actually don’t look “that” sinful, do they? When you say just a little something kind-of gossipy at work, it doesn’t stand out among all of the really bad gossip. It melts right in and we can even, perhaps, pat ourselves on the back for not being as bad as everyone else. That’s a coffee-colored sin in a coffee-colored world.
Other sins like this are complaining, envy, pride (which is cloaked as self-confidence, self-abasement, self-obsession), anxiety and worry, gluttony, selfishness, ungodly entertainment choices, grudges, discontentment, idolatry (often cloaked as wrong priorities)…well, there are so many more, aren’t there? We label them as not that bad—and perhaps don’t even think much about them—because they are falling on the norm of a coffee-colored world and not standing out as very bad at all.
Do you, like me, ever wonder how God views these things? If we stripped away the coffee-colored filter, would we understand that these are the sins that Christ died for? It wasn’t just for murder and adultery and all the sins we label as “very bad sins”.
It’s for the sins we hardly even think about. He died for that unkind remark, the constant complaints we voice, the grudge we hold in our heart against someone, the movie filled with sorcery or violence that we watched last night, the over-eating we did at dinner, the choice to prioritize a hobby or our children over honoring the Lord, the anxiety that comes from our lack of trust. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
If we aren’t comparing ourselves to scripture, we can get the wrong idea that we are pretty good people. Our coffee-colored sins spill out on to a coffee-colored world without mark or stain. But when they spill out on to the pure white carpet of scripture, it’s a different story, isn’t it? That’s when we begin to understand sin for what it is. That’s when we begin to understand our need for a Savior and the marvelous grace and mercy that God has shed on us in providing Jesus.
I don’t know about you, but I have so many coffee-colored sins that splatter the landscape of my life. Too many. Things that I have excused or rationalized away as “just me” or “not that bad”, as I compare myself to the rest of the coffee-colored world.
But they are still sins nonetheless. They are sins that Jesus died for. And I’d be utterly lost and hopeless without Jesus’s victory on the cross.
I am NOT a good person. I try to be. I want to be. By the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in me, I’ve made some progress. But I could never be good enough. There is no balance to weigh our good works against our sins, but if there were, I wouldn’t make it into heaven. None of us would (Romans 3:10).
Praise God we have a Savior. Praise God for the Holy Spirit who opens our eyes to show us the true reality of our sin against the purity of God. Praise God that we can be born again and have eternal life if we but repent and have faith in Christ alone (John 14:6).
Coffee-colored sins deceive us into thinking we are something we really aren’t. And that may be the most dangerous kind of sin of all.
Only Jesus can wash away all of our sins—including those deceptive coffee-colored sins that fall upon a coffee-colored world, fooling us into believing the lie that we are a “good person”.