Frustrated with herself, Jane drums her fingers on the surface of the kitchen table. Her new year’s resolution is to treat her family with grace and kindness, even when their choices set her head spinning. However, here she is again, only weeks after the start of 2024, nagging and complaining about something that–if she is truthful with herself–is inconsequential.

Gerald stomps around the garage. His family’s comments about him acting like Eyore frustrates him; he knows they are telling the truth. He tries to remain optimistic and upbeat, trusting the Lord is in control. However, any semblance of peace and composure drains from him whenever he watches the evening news.

Jack hangs his head in shame. After years of sobriety, he succumbed to temptation during the holidays and slid down addiction’s slippery slope. He now wonders how he can face his family, especially his grandchildren who always idolized him.

The three grandparents described above are godly folks. In fact, many of their friends and fellow church goers would describe them as exemplary Christians who love the Lord and long to represent Christ to the world through spiritually fruitful lives. Yet, all three find themselves yielding to temptation and repeating old patterns of behavior.

Can you identify with them? Do you try to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:1-2 ESV), only to discover that the harder you try, the more you fail? Do you feel as though there is a battle of wills raging inside you? If so, you aren’t alone. 

Why do we sin (despite our best intentions)?

Desiring to be like God, Adam and Eve believed the serpent’s lie and chose disobedience over an intimate relationship with their Creator. Sin became knitted into the fiber of humanity in a single bite of fruit. Hence, the Psalmist laments, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin, did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5 ESV).

The Good News is that “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come…God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (II Corinthians 5:17, 21 NIV). 

Why do Christians still sin? The answer can be found in Jesus’ warning to his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Watch and pray that you may not enter temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26.41 ESV). Regardless of how hard we try to stay on the path of righteousness, our flesh sometimes causes us to stumble.

Sin separates us from God. It’s no wonder the enemy perseveres to place perfectly timed temptations in the paths of Christians. In her book, Fervent, Priscilla Shirer writes, “If I were your enemy, I tempt you toward certain sins, making you believe they are basically (even biologically) unavoidable. I’d study your tendencies and proclivities till I learned the precise conditions that make you the most likely to indulge them. And then I’d strike right there. Again and again. Wear you down. Because if I can’t separate you from God forever, I can at least set you at odds with him for the time being.”

Let’s be honest with ourselves: being at odds with God is soul crushing. And it diminishes the impact of our testimony. 

Four Steps to Overcoming Sin:

1. Stop trying to overcome the temptations of the flesh with sheer willpower.

We were created for a dependent relationship with God. When we rely on our own strength to overcome temptation or break sinful behavior patterns, we end up discouraged, exhausted, and eventually defeated. 

We need to remind ourselves of Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (I Corinthians 10:13 ESV).

2. Develop a daily rhythm of repentance and renewal. 

Unconfessed sin can become an ugly monster. Take, for example, King David, whom Scripture describes as a “man after God’s own heart” (I Samuel 13:14 ESV).  While enjoying a lovely spring day from the vantage of his rooftop, David spies Bathsheba bathing next door and sins by lusting for her. The devastating chain reaction that  follows–adultery, pregnancy, deceit, and murder–could have been avoided if David had climbed off the roof, repented of his sin, and received God’s forgiveness.

God was gracious in sending Nathan the prophet to confront David about his sin. Repentant, David writes one of the most well-known Psalms. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit” (Psalm 51:10-12 ESV).

God promises “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9 ESV). 

3. Abide in Christ.

Jesus’ message to the disciples during the Last Supper is still relevant to us today: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing…. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:5,8 NIV).

4. Walk by the Spirit.

During the Last Supper, Jesus also promised to send the Holy Spirit to comfort, advise, encourage, strengthen, and lead us in all truth. If we walk by the Spirit, we “will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Galatians 5:16-17 ESV).

As we allow ourselves to be led and matured by the Holy Spirit, our lives will be characterized by his fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23 ESV). Not only does this fruit glorify the Father, it points our precious grandchildren to something better than the world offers. It points them to the Lord.