He That Sinneth Against Me Wrongeth His Own Soul

He that sinneth against Me wrongeth his own soul.—Proverbs 8:36

What constitutes sinning against Christ? First, to take partial views of His glorious gospel. Second, when He would gently place His yoke about our necks, to kick at the restraint and refuse it. Third, to coldly hear the offers of His grace and grieve His Holy Spirit by not fully and spiritually accepting them.

How grievous that men love the ways of death. We love death when we suffer our desires to loiter about its precincts—our thoughts and desires reveal what we truly are. We embrace captivity when we make but few and faint efforts to break sin's chains.

How does the sinner who loves death wrong his own soul? He chooses to be a beggar amid infinite riches. He treats his soul as mere mortal stuff, laboring to fill it with creature comforts while starving it of Christ.

Consider the eight-fold self-injury: Sinners snatch their souls from wisdom, spoil and rob them, infect them with guilt, corrupt them with filth, disgrace them, torment them with conscience's pangs, betray them to sin, and ultimately destroy them eternally.

Yet mark Elohim's immutable law: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Through sinful neglect, precious years freighted with golden opportunities vanish irretrievably. Moral growth arrests. He that sinneth against God dwarfs his better nature, deadening what might have flourished toward eternal good.