In my previous blog post, I promised to devote the next one to the problem of dealing with sin in our pursuit of holiness. In other words: how do I know when I am sinning and what do I do with it once I do know? Fasten your seatbelts, here we go!
Before we delve into the practical nitty-gritty, let me zoom out for a moment and talk about sin in general, which is for many a believer still a confusing subject.
Every member of the human race has been infected with this moral disease called sin since Adam. The Greek word used for it is “hamartia,” an archery term that means “missing the mark.” You get the picture: anything that misses the mark of God’s original design for the human beings He created is sin. Which is just about everything in our human nature. The apostle Paul describes it as a law, or force, at work in our bodies:
“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.” (Romans 7:17-23)
This “law at work in our members” is what makes us break the rules of God’s law, which has been put into place to expose individual acts as sin. We all have that same sinful nature, which is sometimes called “the flesh” (Romans 8:8, Galatians 6:8), at other times our “old self” (Ephesians 4:22), or “body of sin.” (Romans 6:6) The heart of that sinful nature is that we want to be our own God and all the wants and desires that flow from it are designed to feed that notion. We only know that acting on those desires is sin because He has put dos and don’ts into place. If those weren’t there we wouldn’t know that certain thoughts and acts are contrary to God’s intention for us and therefore sin, and we would not know that those thoughts and acts keep cropping up because we carry around this sinful nature.
With regard to that sinful nature, the Apostle Paul makes it clear what happens to it when we place our faith in Christ as Savior and Lord:
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:5-11)
When we place our faith in Christ and repent of our sinful nature, we receive forgiveness of sin, the gift of righteousness (freedom from the status of sinner and the obligation to pay its penalty, which is death and eternal punishment), and a new, godly nature as the Holy Spirit comes to indwell us.
His presence in us gives birth to a whole new mindset: we consider our old self and its wants and desire as dead, meaning that even though it is still there it is of zero importance and even abhorrent to us, and the new life we have as all-important and desirable. That is a 180-degree turnabout in the kind of appetites and urges that dominate our lives. We go from spending all our time, efforts, and resources on fulfilling the desires of our flesh to spending all our time, efforts, and resources on growing the life God has put in us – the life that exhibits the character of Jesus and becomes visible by the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).
Meanwhile, we still sin. 1 John 1:8 tells us as much: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” The difference is that the sin that keeps rearing its ugly head does not condemn us or jeopardize our salvation (Romans 8:1). But we do have to do something with it.
The first thing to do is recognize our unique ways of sinning. Generally speaking, there are three types of sin we commit:
Sins of commission – willful acts of rebellion ( like lying, stealing).
Sins of omission – not doing something you know you’re supposed to do (like neglecting your prayer life, not giving thanks to God, or not going to church).
Sins of ignorance – doing things that are an offense to God and that grieve the Holy Spirit without realizing that they do (like subconsciously worrying over money or circumstances, getting mad at somebody who cuts you off in traffic).
For the most part, those sins come out differently in all of us. Some may be more prone to jealousy, others to lying, yet others to lust, and so on. It helps us to know what we are prone to so we can seek God’s help in putting hat to death in us and replacing it with godly alternatives,
For many of us, the question is: how do I know when I still do these things? There are three things God uses to expose sin in us, especially the more hidden sins of ignorance:
1. His Word – Engagement with God’s Word is crucial for all believers. 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” Similarly, Hebrews 4:12 teaches us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” God’s Word acts as a mirror by laying out God’s precepts by which we are supposed to live, giving us the opportunity to weigh our actions and words and see if they measure up to what the Bible says they should be. But if we don’t know our Bibles, how are we to know?
2. The Holy Spirit – He helps us by piercing our conscience when we do something wrong. John 14:26 says: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” The pangs in our conscience when we do something wrong are the Holy Spirit reminding us of the things Jesus taught us about how we are to live in the kingdom of God.
3. The testimony of others – these verses speak for themselves:
Galatians 6:1: “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”
1 Timothy 5:20: “As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.”
Luke 17:3: “Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.”
James 5:19-20: “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.“
Especially early on in our Christian walk, we have to learn in what ways we still offend. But once we do, how do we respond? The Bible is clear about that also, and it is good news!
1 John 1:9 gives us the clearest and most standard response: “ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.“
That is step 1: Respond to the sense of conviction over a sin that is revealed to you with confession and faith in the promise that you will receive cleansing because the blood of Christ covers your entire sinful nature. That is the way in which the Lord is gradually removing remaining obstacles to your spiritual growth, potential footholds that Satan can exploit to keep accusing and condemning you, and changing your nature to conform to the holiness of Christ.
Step 2 is a reinforcement of your proactive stance against sin. Instead of beating yourself up over the sin that was just uncovered, let your confession and the ensuing cleansing be a motivator to turn away from sin. Romans 6:12-13 tells us how: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.”
Step 3 is to reaffirm your faith in two indisputable spiritual facts, by which you can further defend yourself against false guilt or any lie Satan will lob at you about losing your salvation:
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1,2)
“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:28,29)
Becoming sensitive to what the Word of God reflects back to you and what the Spirit whispers to your conscience, or to the loving feedback of others who can see what you often can’t see is evidence of your spiritual growth. They are steps toward sinning less. You are being sanctified. The Holy Spirit is changing your nature so that, without realizing it, you sin less and less and act more and more according to the new nature He has placed in you, bearing the fruit of the Spirit to His glory.
And that, my friends, is good news.