23 ways you reject your Creator

You’ve likely asked the question, “how can people who have never heard about Jesus be held responsible for their sin?”

I know I have. 

The question seems to arise naturally from Romans 1:18-32:

What can be known about God? What is plain to us? What has God shown us since the creation of the world? What is the truth that we suppress? 

Jen Wilkin explains it this way:

“Our guilt is established before God not because we reject Him as Messiah, but because we reject Him as Creator. In rejecting Him as Creator, we aren’t just saying, ‘I don’t need you to save me.’ We’re saying, ‘I deny that you made me. I am my own source. I am self-sufficient. I am self-existent.’ We begin to ascribe to ourselves things that are only true of the invisible God.” 

It is the very first thing we learn about God: he is the Creator. 

From Genesis to Revelation, a lot of ink is spilled praising God as creator and teaching about His creative design. And while I often only consider this reality when thinking about the design of my physical body, Paul starts the letter of Romans here because the good news of the Gospel is that the Creator is also the Redeemer. 

Put another way: we need a Redeemer because every one of us has rejected our Creator. 

So how are each of the 23+ sins listed in Romans 1:18-32 a rejection of God as creator?

1. Dishonoring of their bodies: Instead of enjoying sexuality according to God’s physical design and spiritual purpose, we “exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature” (Romans 1:26-27).
2. Unrighteousness: Created in the image of a righteous God, we reveal our unrighteousness by failing to punish sin and instead celebrating it, calling evil “good” and good “evil.”
3. Evil: God is good – he always does what is best. Instead of reflecting the goodness of God by loving and choosing what is best, we choose to act evilly. 
4. Covetousness: We want more than what is given, denying that our Maker has done what is best for his creation.
5. Malice: God is good and he takes pleasure in doing good. We take pleasure in doing harm towards others. 
6. Envy: God is a giver and he has made His creation with the capacity to not only receive from God, but in turn give. Instead, we seek to take more than we have been given and actually take from others. 
7. Murder: Instead of giving life, we take life, destroying creation. 
8. Strife: God is peace and His kingdom is one of peace (Isaiah 9). Instead of bringing peace and pursuing peace, we disrupt and destroy.  
9. Deceit: God is truth and in him there is no lie. Instead of speaking the truth, we intentionally mislead and trick one another.
10. Maliciousness: We harm one another instead of doing good and extending the rule and reign of God’s kingdom.
11. Gossip: God speaks creation into existence. Instead of speaking life, our words bring death and destruction quietly. 
12. Slander: God speaks creation into existence. Instead of speaking life, our words bring death and destruction in the public square. 
13. Haters of God: Instead of worshiping God, enjoying Him and seeking Him, we accuse God of injustice and seek to remove Him from our lives.
14. Insolent: Instead of humbly seeing ourselves as we truly are, in relationship to God, we exalt ourselves above what we truly are. We believe that we can be like God.  
15. Haughty: We don’t just exalt ourselves above our true state, but we actually think of ourselves as superior to other created beings and diminish their created value and worth.
16. Boastful: We exalt ourselves by intentionally lying, claiming a greatness we do not possess. Humility is not a lack of self-worth but to submit to the greater greatness of God. 
17. Inventors of Evil: Made in the image of our creator, we don’t create out of nothing, but we take what we are given and given over to a depraved mind instead of creating good
18. Disobedient to parents: We disregard the natural authority that God has put in place.
19. Foolish: We were created with minds that could know and perceive God and yet we deny His existence.
20. Faithless: God has given us resources (not just material, but immaterial) and we don’t use them in the way they were created – we are not faithful, but faithless. 
21. Heartless: The idea of being heartless is almost the opposite of being disobedient to parents – it carries the connotation of lacking familial love for the children that God has given you. 
22. Ruthless: Instead of valuing life, we devalue it by violently treating life as cheap and worthless.
23. Giving approval to those who practice such things: created in community for the purpose of glorifying God together, we teach and encourage each other in our destructive acts of de-creation.

We do not live our lives asking, “If I am made, what did my Maker intend?” No, we live as though we are not created. We deny what we can know, what is plain to us, what God has revealed since the creation of the world. 

We worship and serve the creature rather than the creator, doing what seems right in our own eyes and exchanging God’s glory for a lie.

The tempter questioned His word - questioned His design - the purpose and limits He put on the things He made. Does God have the authority to define the things he has made? To say what is good for us? 

And we continue to reject our Creator in whose image we are made. We deny him and we also take the way He has made us and the purpose for which He has made us, and use our talents and abilities to destroy what God has created.

And yet, He is still creating. He is making all things new. Because our Creator is also our Redeemer. 

So be honest...where are you denying God as Creator? Which of these sins do you need to repent of, turn to God, and worship Him as the Creator of all things?