“The God who can change a sinner into a Christian by giving him His life can equally transform the fleshly Christian into a spiritual one by giving His life more abundantly.” Watchman Nee
We are told in Ephesians 5:25 that our glorious Savior “…loved the church and gave Himself up for her,”. Then we are told why He laid His life down for us in vs. 26, “so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,”. Then we are told what His ultimate purpose or passion in all of this is in vs. 27, “that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”
Jesus Christ longs for His church to be with Him. And He longs for us in the meantime to fully cooperate with Him in His glorious transforming, purifying, cleansing work in us from all sin, defilement, corruption, etc.
In this post and perhaps in one or two afterwards I want to provide a refresher course of sorts for how to overcome that “…sin which so easily entangles us…” Hebrews 12:1, and that keeps us from the glory our Lord has destined for us.
It is a painful thing as a believer who loves the Lord to continue to be mired by sin. It is painful to us and it is painful to the Holy Spirit who indwells us.
It is a wonderful thing as a believer to be delivered from sin and to overcome sin in all its forms. This is our heritage; and no matter how deeply we were mired in sin in the past or perhaps in the present, our loving Savior came to set the captives free, and He will set you and I free as we learn to live by the Spirit and not the flesh.
The whole topic of our transformation or sanctification is a very broad one. Many books have been written on it. Ultimately every word from Gen. 1:1 to Rev. 22:21 has bearing on it. So this will not be exhaustive in any way, but hopefully helpful. I’m going to share some principles that have helped me over all these years. And the first one is this:
Cry out to God for deliverance from your sin as a way of life. King David cried out to God often with prayers like these: - “Deliver me from all my transgressions” – Psalm 39:8 - “Do not remember the iniquities of our forefathers against us; Let Your compassion come quickly to meet us, …deliver us and forgive our sins for Your name’s sake.” Psalm 79:8,9
Forgiveness for sins was precious to David. But deliverance from sins was even more precious. Part of the strength of David’s intimacy with God came from his confidence that he could go straight to God for deliverance from specific sins – even repeated ones. May we ever more have the same confidence – recognizing that His response to the cries of His children are immediate, though the effect of His response might not be seen or felt for a while.
A second crucial step in overcoming sin is learning to Consider yourself as dead to sin and alive to God – regardless of what you are presently struggling with. All of chapter six of Romans is critical for us to continually come back to in our battle to overcome sin. It is a foundational chapter for our sanctification. But the gist of its message is believing the right things about ourselves concerning sin and righteousness now that we are in Christ and united with Him: “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:11 When you and I are finding ourselves going back to and repeating the sins we’ve so often asked forgiveness for, it is crucial that we believe what the Bible says about us and not what our circumstances dictate or what the accuser of the brethren whispers.
Somehow when you and I placed our faith in Christ, we were supernaturally buried with Him when He died (vs. 3,4), our old self was crucified with Him (vs.6) and then we were supernaturally raised with Him (vs. 5). If you have been born again by the Spirit of God this is all true of you whether you feel it or not. And it is on the basis of these truths that Paul later declares this wonderful truth, “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” (vs. 14). This is a promise well worth memorizing when the battle over sin gets intense. Chapter six of Romans is a great example of the fact that the battle over sin requires right thinking as much as it requires right action.
A third principle or practice in the process of learning to overcome sin as a way of life is Confess all sins to God and recurring ones (at least) to men. Especially when the battle is intense and you find yourself going back to the same sins it is very tempting to forego this both with God and with others out of shame and pride and perhaps a sense of hopelessness. But the apostle John makes it very clear that “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:9. We desperately need both His forgiveness and cleansing to win this battle with sin.
I know it gets wearisome coming to Him with the same ole sins. I know the last thing when we are mired in sin we want to do is come to our spouse or trusted friend with another confession. But confession is one of the things God has designed to break the back of sin. It takes it out of hiding and darkness, which is Satan’s domain. James puts it this way, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” James 5:16 Yes it may be embarrassing to spit this out tIt o someone, but if you share it with a righteous man or woman their prayers can go along way in helping you get free. Believe me it is worth the discomfort. Please know when we allow shame, pride, embarrassment etc., to cause us to keep this battle hidden, we are playing right into our cruel enemy’s hands.
Can I say a quick word to leaders re: all of this? One reason besides the ones I’ve mentioned above why confession of sins is so difficult for so many is because we have built a church culture wherein it is not encouraged and modeled. In some churches sin is hardly mentioned, or if so it is as if it is mostly a thing of the past. This sets our people up for failure and bondage as they think they are the only one struggling with whatever they are struggling with, so they better keep it to themselves. And of course when we leaders allow such a culture to develop in our churches and ministries it sets us up for a fall sooner or later, as we are sadly seeing in both charismatic and non charismatic streams these days.
One of the reasons we get mired in sin is because we don’t see sin like God does or we don’t feel about it like He does. All of us have been greatly affected by living in this compromised sin-stained world for decades. So my fourth principle or step for overcoming sin as a way of life is to Ask God repeatedly to help you see the evil of your sins; to feel about them the way He does. He is so glad to answer this prayer. We know one of the reasons God so anointed His Son while He was on earth is because of what Jesus loved, and what He hated, “YOU HAVE LOVED RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HATED LAWLESSNESS; THEREFORE GOD, YOUR GOD, HAS ANOINTED YOU..” Hebrews 1:9 The apostle John by the way says “…sin is lawlessness.” I John 3:4.
Jesus hated all sin and unrighteousness and lawlessness because He highly treasured fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and He knew sin would forever mar that sweet fellowship (not to mention destroy man’s hope for ever being restored to God). He also had watched it create havoc and destruction on individuals, couples, families, communities, cities and nations from the beginning of time. He was not born in sin like we are, but He was “….tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15 So again it is our heritage in Christ to feel more and more about sin the way He does. But it is not automatic. As is so often the case with so much else in the kingdom, we “ …do not have because you do not ask.” James 4:2 May all of us learn ever more to “Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.” Romans 12:9 And to allow His word to ever more renew our minds in this regard. Again the effect of living in this world that has so watered down and dumbed down God’s standard of righteousness is greater than most of us realize.
Well I have much more to say on all of this, but I believe I will stop for now. May the Holy Spirit do a great sanctifying, purifying, transforming work in each of my readers today for His glory in Jesus’s name. Amen.
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