S’mores and Sin

S’mores – that warm, gooey, chocolate-y, and graham cracker treat most often reserved for camp-outs – have come to my kitchen. About the beginning of June each year stores begin to sell marshmallows next to chocolate and graham crackers. I resist the urge for a few trips to the store, but it doesn’t last long. Sometime toward the middle of June until the end of summer I have graham crackers, Hershey bars, and marshmallows in my pantry. In fact I bought marshmallow roasting forks so I could roast the marshmallows over my gas grill or stove.

S’mores are wonderful treats, but they are incredibly messy and sticky.


Being messy is all fun and games until you realize you need help getting clean. There were some tears and cries for help when the fun of the mess was over. Isn’t that the way it is with sin?

Sin takes us in, being messy is fun – at first. Then we are stuck with sticky faces and hands with no ability to clean ourselves. The more we try to do good the more muck clings to us. Even our good deeds are filthy because we are infected with the nasty stickiness of sin.

But God doesn’t leave us in our sinful sticky mess. He washes us clean through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Through Him we are cleansed and healed – cleansed from every sticky yucky mucky sin in our lives. Now there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)

But I forget. I start scrubbing on my sins, failures, and mistakes. Somehow I think I can clean myself up. As I scrub the stickiness spreads – bitterness takes root, self-righteousness weighs heavy, selfishness strangles, and I forget to do good. All I do is tainted when I do it myself, for myself, or for anyone, but the Maker of the universe.

It is counter to everything else I do. As I grow closer to God, I must grow more dependent on Him and less independent. It is there in the desperate dependence on His grace and mercy that I am washed clean through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. In desperate dependence I ask to be filled with the Spirit to live a clean life. I cannot do it myself, so God in all His glory made a way because He loves stumbling sinful me. He loves you too.

Father God help us grow more dependent on You in all we say and do. Amen.

Angela Mackey

Author and Speaker

Angela is a stumbling woman in need of God’s scandalous grace. Through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, she bears the name Christian. She speaks and writes to make much of this God, His only Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who lives in her. She graduated college with a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing and is a Registered Nurse. She also obtained her Masters of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies through Knox Theological Seminary.