SIN

Over the last few days I’ve been thinking about the subject of sin. Sin in my own life as well as in the lives of family and people I coach and with whom I work.

I’m going to assume that all of us would like to be victorious over sin which is holding us down and holding us back.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

~ Hebrews 12:1,2 ESV

Sin that:

• Weighs us down
• Clings closely to us

My desire in this post is not to do a deep theological dive on the subject of sin . There are books galore that have been written as to  how one is to have victory over the sin that weighs us down and clings closely to us.

I would rather like to discuss how we approach sin that has been identified either directly through the Holy Spirit, or as a result of someone confronting us; whether that be family, friends or co-workers.

I  sincerely believe that Romans, chapters 6-8, is the best section of Scripture which has the answers to victorious Christian living. It teaches us how to not allow sin to have destructive power over us.

I also believe that one sign of spiritual maturity is the way we deal with sin once it has become made clear to us.

I sense that we live in a society that calls sin everything but sin. One reason we can give for not dealing with our sin, is that the cause is always someone else or something else—not us!  We are constantly being told that nothing is ever really our fault—it’s poor parenting, lack of education, living in a bad neighborhood, in our genetic makeup, but not something we need to own and take responsibility for. We’re off the hook as it were.

We do have options.

We can do any combination of the following with SIN:

• Deny – Refuse to acknowledge it as sin
• Minimize -No big deal, everyone does it
• Delay -I’ll deal with It later
• Disguise-Call it a mistake, a short coming, a lack of good judgement, not really sin but just  a part of being human being
• Blame-My family, my friends, my environment, the government, anybody/anything but myself. It’s not whether you win or lose but how you place the blame!
• Excuses-Reasons why I sin that are not really my fault and not sin at all
• Own it-do something about it
• Confess it -Call it what the Bible calls it
• Repent-Trust God for His amazing grace to turn away from it

These are all choices we can make as we become aware of a sin in our lives. Only the last three on the list are biblical and appropriate. The rest can sound good to us but they don’t help us call it what it is and take responsibility for it; as we lean into the Holy Spirit, trusting Him for lasting change.

Additionally, in my view,  there are different levels in which I can identity and experience sin:

Feeling—I begin to feel sin heading my way in my emotions

Thinking-I begin thinking about it. Should I do it, say it or behave in a certain way?

Action -I then act out what I have been feeling and thinking. It may happen immediately,  after a few minutes, a  few hours, a few days or weeks, but if I feel it and think about it long enough there’s a good chance action will take place.

For me, my biggest sin area  is anger. Long before I act it out in some way, I’m feeling angry over something. Sometimes I act directly from what I’m feeling. Other times I think about it for a while allowing my emotions to build and then can act it out.

I’m not insinuating that all feelings are sinful, but some can be.

Where I easily get in trouble is going from feeling to action and not acknowledging the fact that I’m letting the my sinful emotion of anger quickly lead to action rather than catching it at the feeling level; nipping it in the bud, cutting it off at the pass!

I don’t have to act out everything I’m feeling or thinking, but my own immaturity might lead me to do just that. What I’ve been experience lately is identifying the sinful feeling of anger before I act—confessing it and repenting at the feeling level. This is something new for me and is becoming a game-changer!

Many people deal with sin only at the action level. They think  that they only sin if they do something, not feel or think about something in a sinful way.  As maturity begins to set in, we begin to see sin earlier in the process—on a feeling and thinking level, not just an action level.

Jesus alludes to sinning before actually acting it out in telling us that by looking lustfully at a woman adultery has already been committed in the heart (Matthew 5:28).

In various situation, we might think we haven’t done anything sinful, so we haven’t sinned. The sin can start before we do it (the feeling and thinking), not only as we act it out.

Allow me to close by throwing in just a bit of theology.

The goal is not that we become sinless, but that we sin less. Romans 6-8 teaches us how this can happen.

Here are some awesome ideas on Romans chapters 6-8 by John Stott.

Really, really good, but also really, really deep and very, very helpful!

John Stott