The Weight of Sin

“For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me” (Psalm 38:4). Fall Communion Season 2025

There are seasons when sin is only a word, and others when it is a weight. Not the light sting of conscience either, but the slow crush of truth. David knew it, the feeling that one’s own soul has become its own millstone.

At first, we manage our guilt like a balance sheet. We compare, excuse, minimize, ignore, add, subtract, multiply, until the scales balance. But when the Spirit draws near, our arithmetic fails. The smallest sin outweighs the world. What was once a notion becomes a thick, pressing, personal presence. This is the Spirit at work in the soul.

It’s here we see how sin is not so much something done, as something born. It lives in us. Its roots twist through the will, the memory, the imagination. It does not let go easily.

And so, the believer cries from personal tasting: “Too heavy for me!” This sounds like despair, but its actually the cry of honesty. Because only as the sinner cries does the Savior stoop.

Grace does not erase the weight, it bears it away in your stead. At the cross, the crushing burden was transferred. The soul that falls down there is lightened. The conscience, once bent, straightens beneath Christ’s substitution, remittance, and forgiveness.

Sin is heavy, yes. But it was never meant to be carried by two. There is no double jeopardy in the Father’s justice.

When the Word convicts you, let it press, but pass it on to Calvary. Let it drive you down only far enough to reach Christ’s washing hands.

For there, the burden freshly rolls away,
and the ground feels strangely soft beneath your feet.