So you’ve been on a spiritual high. Perhaps you went to a worship night that really touched your heart. Or maybe your morning quiet times lately have been filled with new insights into how to apply God’s word to your life. Maybe you’ve just led someone to Christ. Whatever the details, things are good. The Holy Spirit has felt very real, and very close, and your heart has overflowed with love for Christ.
And then you blow it. It might be pornography, or drugs, or maybe you binged on alcohol. Perhaps you woke up in jail, or in the wrong bed, or with the wrong person in your bed. It could be a lot of things; all that matters is that you knew it was wrong and you did it anyway. You sinned, and not in a small way. You messed up, and you know it.
And then comes the shame and the guilt. You can’t read the Bible, or even pray, without feeling like a hypocrite. Your mind knows that God forgives sin, but you don’t feel forgiven. You don’t feel like you should be forgiven, because this isn’t the first time you’ve messed up, or even the tenth. You’re a failure. You don’t even want to talk to other believers, so you slink away, avoiding church, avoiding prayer, avoiding your brothers and sisters. It could well be days, or even weeks, before things start feeling anywhere close to the way they did before. And then, finally, you swear to yourself that you’ll try harder to keep on the right path from now on, so this won’t ever happen again. You tell yourself that, from now on, things are going to be different. But in your heart, you’re pretty sure they won’t be.
If you’ve been following Jesus for more than a few weeks, you’ve most likely experienced something like this. And the very fact that I’m writing about this should be enough to demonstrate that you’re not the only one who has experienced it. On the contrary; there’s only ever been one person who hasn’t fallen into sin, and you’re not him. My hope is that, once you realize that you’re not alone, you can take a step back from your own experience, and see the pattern of lies and manipulation you’re being subjected to. And maybe learn how to better deal with it.
The first thing to understand is that what you’ve been going through isn’t just happening randomly. You’re being fed a set of lies intended to mentally separate you from God, and keep you separated. You have an enemy, in other words. A very old and very sneaky one. And there are some very specific, very damaging, lies that he wants you to believe.
Lie number one: it’s a sin to want something that God has forbidden. This lie confuses temptation with sin. That matters, because your enemy knows that you’re probably not going to fight very hard to win a battle you think you’ve already lost.
But temptation is not sin. Scripture tells us that Jesus himself “has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:25). And it wasn’t easy for him – resisting temptation meant suffering (Hebrews 2:18). It will for you too. Remember, though, that you have to want something before you can be tempted by it. I wouldn’t be tempted to steal a pink My Little Pony t-shirt, even if you showed me one in my size. Nor could I be tempted by a plate of mixed cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. I don’t want either of those things, so there’s no temptation.
But there are things we want, and that’s not entirely bad. In reality, it’s only the fact that our desires are not exactly like God’s that makes our obedience meaningful. If God only ever told you to do what you already want to do, there’s no actual submission there. No way to pray, “yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). But we’re told in Scripture:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship (Romans 12:1).
A sacrifice that costs us nothing is not, in any meaningful sense, a sacrifice at all (2 Samuel 24:24).
So simply wanting to have or to do something God doesn’t want us to have or to do is not itself sin, although those desires can certainly lead us into sin if we’re not careful.
Which leads to lie number two: I can’t go to Jesus in prayer when my thoughts aren’t pure. This feeling is completely understandable: God is holy, so it’s only natural to feel that I can’t approach him when my heart is longing for something that I know is sin. The result of believing this lie is that, at the exact moment when I’m the most tempted; that is, when my desire for a sexy woman, or a high, or an act of revenge, or whatever, is at it’s strongest, the enemy uses this lie to try and cut me off from my only possible source of help. To tell me I’m not fit to pray at the very moment I most need to.
And if I do give in to the temptation, which I probably will if I’ve fallen for the first two lies, this comes back and hits me again, even harder. I’m a failure. I’m dirty. How can I be such a hypocrite, to pray after what I’ve just done? And so a moment of sin becomes hours, or days, or even weeks of failing to seek Christ.
But what does God say?
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 1:8-2:2).
But how do I know I’m genuinely sorry enough to go to God? That question comes from lie number three: whether or not I’m actually forgiven depends on how much remorse I feel. But here’s the brutal truth; you will never feel as sorry for your sins as you should. The reality of sin is always much worse than we believe it is. But that doesn’t matter, because feeling sorry has literally nothing to do with being forgiven.
Read that last Scripture again. It says, “if we confess our sins,” not “if we’re sorry for them.” Confessing in this context means agreeing with God that I was wrong; that I knew what I was supposed to do, and didn’t do it. It means admitting that I have no excuse. I sinned, deliberately. If we do that, God promises to “forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” If that sounds too easy, it’s not. Jesus had to die so that you and I could be forgiven. But he did die, and he rose from the dead. There’s nothing left for us to do except believe that Christ accomplished what he set out to do.
The secret your enemy does not want you to know is that it’s not about how you feel about what you did, or how much time has passed, or how badly you beat myself up over it. The right time to confess that you’ve sinned is always immediately, even though you don’t feel like you deserve to be forgiven. That feeling is correct, by the way; you don’t deserve forgiveness, and you never will. So admit to God, and to yourself, that you don’t deserve it, and then let him give it to you anyway.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:1-4).
God sacrificed his Son to save you when you were his enemy. You can trust that he’ll forgive you now (Romans 5:10). But be aware that, even after you confess your sin and accept God’s forgiveness, you’re going to get hit with one more lie: I have to try harder to avoid sin.
Like all the other lies, this one sounds right. It feels like the right way to resist temptation is by exercising will power, which we all need to develop more of. But the reality is, it doesn’t work. You can’t resist temptation by trying harder. The stronger your will gets, the stronger the temptation will get, because you’re fighting your own desires. You’re never going to be stronger than yourself. Instead, Scripture says:
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2).
“Transformed” doesn’t mean doing the same thing, only harder. It means thinking differently about sin, about God, and about yourself. As for what that looks like, last year I wrote an entire article on resisting sexual temptation, and I’ve come to realize that the techniques I suggested also work pretty well with every other kind of temptation. Briefly, I discussed four steps:
1. Live in the presence of God. Keep up a running prayer conversation with him all day long, even when you’re facing temptation. Especially when you’re facing temptation. Live in prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:17). It’s not as easy as it sounds, but if you keep at it, you’ll find that it genuinely is a game changer. As Nate Sala of the Wise Disciple YouTube channel puts it, “the way you combat sin is you love God more than your sin.”
2. Live on purpose. Don’t drift or veg out. Whatever you’re doing, do it because you deliberately choose to do it. That way, when temptation comes, you’re already doing something else that you can focus on instead.
3. Treat temptation as distraction. Let whatever you’ve chosen to do be a higher priority than entertaining the temptation. Acknowledge the desire; don’t pretend it’s not there. But then remind yourself what Scripture says about that desire, and go back to what you were doing.
4. Only fight today’s battle today. Victory over sin won’t come from forcefully saying “never again,” it will come from saying “not right now,” over and over again, a million times.
And finally, don’t give up. Remember what God has said about you, and about your future:
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure (1 John 3:2-3).
We are not yet fully formed in Christ, but if we keep going, we will be:
Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).