Lapis
nothing under heaven and earth is a sin without a malicious or self destructive intent?...all that said...the use of tobacco, cocaine, heroin, etc... may very well lead to addiction...addictions are spirits. By using drugs we expose ourselves to addictions...but anything can be an addiction. I have given up caffeine for a year now, but I still haven't given up sugar...although I want to... Is
Sugar a sin too? no... but it is destroying my health... eating hormone or steroid pumped meat can give me long term health problems...and I am trying to quit eating red meat...but I still do weekly...where do you draw the line? All fleshly desire for food or drugs or food or anything physical can lead to sin but nothing under heaven and earth is a sin unto itself without the intent.
On the other hand, thoughts get us closer to sin but don't tell the whole story either. We Christians are murdering Muslims and we think of it as protecting our families? Is that a sin? Our intent is to protect our families but the result is murder?
God loves us regardless of our addictions or actions but on earth, we suffer the consequences for our actions. Our actions that injure ourselves or others are invisible to God. God can not even look on sin but every day God watches over us...so there is paradox...God sees our soul which is perfect and pure.
The reason to accept Christ in our life is to fundamentally change the way we interact with our world and to become "little christs" but Christ lived amongst sinners and ate un-clean food and didn't consider it a sin... Anything flesh is not a sin in and of itself... I believe that...But then this is my opinion and even in my opinion are biasis and programming that may be false doctine..
Vegetarians may think eating flesh is a sin...but why stop there? What about the poor carrots... can you imagine a poor carrot screaming as you pull it from the ground and bite into it...hehehehe If you do anything with loving kindness that does not harm anyone then to me that is as close to sinless as possible...but anything you do in your flesh probably causes some kind of harm? Walking on the ground you might crush a robin egg...driving you may run over a kid scrambling for a ball...You may help the poor and then they may become dependent on help? Does that mean we need to stop helping the poor? I am not going to stop. By loving our neighbor as ourselves and loving God with all of our heart and minds we can get close... As we walk in our flesh we are bound to sin but we should not grow weary of doing good.
Sorry about the rambling...I guess I was trying to answer that simple question and I couldn't satisfy my own questions...sowwy: (
Love as much as you can and that makes it into heaven...the rest is burned up : )