OVERCOMING SINAre you sick and tired of falling into the same sins over and over again? Is your anger toward sin aroused? Are you ready to be free? Do you want to know how to be free? Only BELIEVE!!! Believe ... believe ... believe in God's Word. For starters, Galatians 2:20 says, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." You must believe that this verse is true for you. Also, in Romans 6:2, it says, "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" The reason why we still live in sin is because we don't actually believe that we died to sin. We say that we believe in Jesus, but we don't actually believe in the power of what He accomplished through the work of the cross.Jesus came to set the captives free. Matthew 1:21 says "You are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins." In Luke 4:18, Jesus said, "He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners." Isaiah 9:4 says, "You have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor." And 2 Corinthians 3:17 says, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." Self-righteousness is the most horrible trap we can find ourselves in. We think we're strong, but in reality we are not. And that is why we continue to sin. When we think that we are strong by ourselves (even though we say with our mouths that our strength comes from God), we will continually find ourselves in the same sin over and over. This self-righteousness is merely a form of pride that tells God we can overcome on our own, and that we don't need His help. In the Old Testament, whenever the Israelites looked to their own strength rather than relying on God, they continually lost the battles. David's second major sin recorded in Scripture was the sin of pride. 2 Samuel 24:1 says that the anger of the Lord burned against Israel after David had ordered that a census be taken to count his fighting men. Through this incident, David was saying to God that He was relying on the strength of his own men, rather than on God. It should not have mattered how many men David had. Rather, when God is on your side, "five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand" Lev 26:8 (see also Lev 26:36). Only believe. Putting your trust in God and God alone is the only way you will ever overcome sin. And that means you must forget about how you feel, forget about the circumstances, and forget about what you understand. You must exercise faith in God and not in yourself (see also "Increasing Your Faith"). "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding" Proverbs 3:5. Also, 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, "We live by faith and not by sight." And again, 2 Corinthians 4:18 says, "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." |