sin and illness

 According to the New Testament sin has a great deal to do with human illness and disease. 

In America there have been decades of syrupy sweet Jesus teaching. It sounds like this: Jesus loves everyone, God loves you, He may be unhappy with your behavior, but you're ok, because God loves you.

But what Jesus says sounds very different. You and I are not ok, we are in big trouble. The black plague wasn't a random act of nature, it was God. What is hard to understand is the same as thousands of years ago; why do evil people flourish, while people that love Jesus die a horrible death. Some people are healed, some people don't get serious illnesses. It's just murky enough to not make any sense. Job suffered the same baffling events that many people face today. Then other people do ok. We want the science project version of the Bible; if you do steps 1 through 7 you will have a great life. But there would be innumerable steps; sin can be obvious, but is often subtle. It should be simple, but it's a nightmare.

 For instance according to the old Testament I never cheated on my wife, but by Jesus' definition I cheated many times, even though I didn't actually cheat, I still cheated. Which made it impossible for me, even though the New Testament says God will make a way for us to escape temptation, I didn't find it. My bad? The reason I never cheated was that my life was miserable, cheating would just make it more miserable. I wanted to cheat, but cheating wouldn't fix the misery. One of the reasons I didn't cheat was I didn't want the drama. It might have worked if I could cheat in a different dimension with no consequences. Maybe I wanted something different, but never found it. The idea of dancing, dining and bedroom dating was great, but life is very different than that.

 John 5:14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.

1 Corinthians 11:29For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. 30For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. 

Sleep in this case means "are dead".