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The Wrong Way To Fight Sin

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When you want to stop doing a sin, what do you do?  Do you try to deprive yourself of something, keep away from tempting situations, or try to distract yourself with more innocuous activities?  You have probably already learned this through practice, but none of these techniques will ever work. You cannot deprive yourself, ignore your desires, or beat your will into submission. Why? Because your mind and will aren’t the center of your decision-making process. Your heart is. If you don’t love something you won’t do it. If you don’t hate something you won’t leave it alone.  Yet in so many of the self-help books and even sermons today, people are preaching this strategy. There is always some new “wisdom” for how to stop bad habits and start good ones. Many of them treat sin like a diet. Starve out the bad. Feed the good. But sin doesn't work like this.  In our passage for today, Paul is going up against similar religious tactics of his time. He is trying to help his aud...
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Sin Doesn’t Come From Temptation

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I grew up thinking temptation was where sin came from. On any given day, I would be going about my business and then temptation would spring to life: a pretty girl would walk by, a friend would launch into a dirty joke, a copy of next week’s test would fall into my hands. It was my duty, then and there, to fight temptation by saying no to it or fleeing from it altogether. Temptation was the enemy. Defeat meant sin. But the problem is not temptation. The real problem is in the heart where our desires lie.  Temptation cannot exist where desire does not first exist. You cannot be tempted to do something you do not first want. The Bible teaches that desire brings about temptation. “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death” (1:14–15). When does temptation occur? After the desires have enticed us. Temptations do not produce desires, but desir...
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