Don’t you sometimes feel like no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop sinning in a particular way? Whether it’s losing your patience, undermining your spouse, judging others, telling little white lies, spreading gossip, binge eating, or one of the millions of other ways sin beckons, we resolve to stop and then still do it.
We can all identify. I mean even the Apostle Paul voiced his frustration over his inconsistent behavior.
“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…” (Paul in Romans 7:15)
And yet we know we are called to die to sin and live holy. But how? Is there even any hope of conquering sin?
There is, but not in the way we think it should look. So what I’m not going to give you is a step-by-step guide. Sorry to disappoint – I know we like lists to follow. And while practical steps can be beneficial, I want to take the focus off anything we might do because of our tendency to base our successes and failures on our own performance – feeling good about ourselves when we do well, beating ourselves up when we backslide and judging others by the same token.
Just consider this as it pertains to the repetitve sin of your child, or spouse. That sin you thought they had conquered. Do you respond in one of these ways?
- “I can’t believe you did that AGAIN!” (As is you can’ relate.)
- “Why are you still struggling with that?” (As if you’ve mastered sin.)
- “I thought you were going to stop!” (As if it were that easy.)
And what we typically do next is remind them of why it’s wrong and why they need to stop. (As if they don’t know).
The problem is we are giving law and living as if we were under the law. But the law was never meant to fix us – only to reveal where we fail to measure up. We will also never be able to fix ourselves (or anybody else) so no matter how strong our faith is or how hard we try to obey, we can’t do it. That is the point!
WE CAN’T. BUT JESUS DID.
He conquered our sin on the cross, but that’s only part of the gospel! What we need to see is that his perfect life of obedience is what satisfied God’s requirement to uphold the whole law. And because he lived in a way we never could he was able to become the perfect atoning sacrifice.
What’s amazing is God then counted his righeousess to all his sinful children and now views us accordingly. That means he is not standing over us in judgment and condemnation for our failures or backsliding. He is not keeping track of all the ways we don’t measure up. And he is not withholding love from us. Our sin has already been conquered; his loved eternally secured.
Therefore, we strive to obey – not to get his love – but because of his love. That’s a huge difference! Unfortunately, we act like his love is dependent on our perfermonce, instead of us seeing it was Jesus’ performance for us. For this reason when we preach law, give law, try to live according to the law, the emphasis is on us and our strength, discipline, power and goodness. Instead of his.
Jesus addressed this mindset in his Sermon on the Mount by saying:
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
To be meek is to know our weaknesses and insufficiencies. And where we are weak, he is strong. We can then be free to admit our need, confess our sins and live a life of repentance. That is the Christian life – not perfect obedience, but dealing honestly with our sin and turning our eyes to see we are covered by the perfect obedience of our conquering King.
