The Wrong Way To Fight Sin
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...