Overcoming Sin

We fall into the trap of sin many times. Whenever we feel like we have gained victory over a particular sin, alas, we fall into it again. Is this the pattern that gets repeated in our life?. Are we worn out by this?. Then we need to realize that we need to improve certain aspects of our life.

We may fall again and again into sinning if we try to fight sin by our own strength. Devil is more powerful than us and we can never resist him by our own strength. 1 Peter 5:8,9 says "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings". Yes, the devil is like a roaring lion who waits to devour us.

We need to understand the seriousness of the devil's plan. We have a tendency to take these things lightly. We are lacklusture several times in our lives. If we analyze the reasons that lead us to sin, we find that we are at fault all the time. Here are some of the reasons that might lead us to sin.

1. We fall into sin whenever we lack in our prayer

In our Christian life, prayer is the most powerful weapon that we have to fight the devil. We need to ask God very often to protect us from the evil plans of the devil. How important is prayer to overcoming sin in our lives? When you look at Peter, We have Christ's words to him in the Garden of Gethsemane before Peter's denial. There, as Jesus is praying, Peter is sleeping. Jesus wakes him up and says, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak” (Matthew 26:41). We, like Peter, want to do what is right but are not finding the strength. We need to follow God's admonition to keep seeking, keep knocking, keep asking...and He will give us the strength that we need (Matthew 7:7). Prayer is not a magical formula. God is awesome. Prayer is simply acknowledging our own limitations and God's inexhaustible power, and turning to Him for that strength to do what He wants us to do (not what WE want to do) (1 John 5:14-15).

2. We fall into sin when we lack in reading the Bible

Bible is the key to open the spiritual doors. It is the golden rule book for our christian lives and is breathed by God. Bible keeps us in track of our Christian journey withoug derailment of accidents. It has the watch, stop and go signals for life. We should thoroughly understand the scriptures.

The Word of God, the Bible, says that God has given us His Word to equip us for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). It teaches us how to live and what to believe, it reveals to us when we have chosen wrong paths to take, it helps us get back on the right path, and helps us to stay on that path. As Hebrews 4:12 shares, the Word of God is living and powerful, able to penetrate to our hearts to root out the deepest problems that humanly speaking cannot be overcome. The psalmist talks about its life-changing power in-depth in Psalm 119. Joshua was told that the key to his success in overcoming his enemies was to not forget this resource but rather to meditate on it day and night so that he could observe it. This he did, even when what God commanded him did not make military sense, and this was the key to his victory in His battle for the Promised Land.

3. We fall into sin when we are lazy and idle

Practically speaking, we are drawn into sin mostly when our mind is idle and when we are not doing our duties properly. We should always keep ourselves occupied with some activity. We can cultivate good hobbies. When we are free, we can spend time usefully if we have hobbies like playing music, cooking, gardening, photography, and so..on. Make sure that none of the hobbies bring dishonour to God.

4. We fall into sin when we are worried, anxious and frustrated.

One of the reasons for depression and worries is when we fail to accompolish certain things. We can never accompolish all our ideas overnight. We have a tendency to think of too many things and achieve nothing. We need to have proper planning and achievable goals. All our goals in life should be centered around God and should bring glory and honour to Him. We need to seek God's help in achieving the goals. We can be great achievers when we have God on our side. Zechariah 4:6 says that "It is not by might nor by power, but by My spirit" . We need to understand that only by the grace of God that we can achieve our goals.

5. We fall into sin when we lack discipline

Our life should always be disciplined. We need to always live according to the word of God and not according to the pattern of this world. Lack of self-discipline leads to sin. We need to avoid situations and environments that leads us to sin. Joseph ran away from the place fearing sin. We need to run away from situations that might entice us to sin. We should gaurd all the parts of our body from sin through discipline. Christianity is 100% practical. We need to do our part and trust God for victory.

6. We fall into sin when we are spiritually proud

spiritual pride is one of the greatest obstacles of victorious christian life. We become so proud of our spritual life that we forget the human nature of us. We get complacent and bog down in our daily walk with our Lord. We begin to forget the value of grace and mercy of God. The spiritual pride makes us feel that we have overcome sin and we look with pride over others who sin and think too much of ourselves. It is during these times that sin strikes down and so badly. No one can take for granted the mercy and grace of God. It is not our righteousness that saves us but the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from sin. We need to only trust Christ.

We can never fight sin by ourselves. Connecting with God every day, every hour, every minute and moment is the key to victory over sin. Sometimes victory over sin comes quickly. Sometimes, in other areas, victory comes more slowly. God has promised us that as we make use of His resources, He will progressively bring about change in our lives. We can persevere in our efforts to overcome sin because we know that He is faithful to His promises.