by Lisa Groen
#1 You can’t overcome sin in your own strength
It is nothing less than spiritual work to overcome sin. Sin is a spiritual illness with moral implications. You need spiritual food for spiritual strength. The word of God is bread from heaven or spiritual food God intends for us to read and take in like food and ingest it until it becomes a part of us and shapes us.
Can sin be overcome by a means other than spiritual work? Temporary means or natural means to overcome sin gives only temporary or non-eternal success. Someone might overcome a sin by their own natural self-control for a while. The fruit of lasting self-control only comes from God. This overcoming of sin is only possible after a person is born-again from God. John 3:3 says, “…“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” God says He gives us fruit that will LAST to eternity. A person must be born again otherwise their fruit won’t last to eternity. The person must be saved out of the kingdom of darkness before their fruit will last. Jesus was speaking to His followers when He said, (in John 15:16) ““You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.”
One such fruit is self-control which comes from God and is of a purer sort and of a supernatural sort different than any self-control that can be mustered up from a person’s own human strength. God has never sinned so his self-control was never tarnished by sin or spiritual illness. A list of common fruits of the Spirit is found in Galatians 5:22-23. This list has elements found in God’s own personality. The NASB reads, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
When God’s word speaks of fruit of the Spirit, it is speaking of a fruit coming from the supernatural life of God which comes from an eternal God and has properties of eternality itself. These properties are found in the purest form in God’s personality and are properties he shares with those who trust Him to make them Christlike.
We cannot do a better job than Jesus did to overcome sin. Jesus had no sin, and he never let it creep into his life. But Jesus who is the Son of God Himself used the word of God as a sword of declaration to overcome temptation and the devil. In Matthew 4:1-11 Jesus used the very word of God to fight the temptations of the devil. This is how he overcame it—he gave no place to the devil or to temptation. It is THIS Jesus that gave us His words, the one who never sinned and is our Savior, that has given us His words, and the words of the Heavenly Father and Holy Spirit are in Scripture to arm us for the battles we face in life.
Reason #2 Why it is Absolutely Imperative That The Christian Reads The Bible Regularly Builds off Reason #1: You Must Be Killing Sin or Sin Will Be Killing You
You can only kill sin in your life through a saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, because we kill sin by the Spirit of God. The same power that was there to crucify our sins that God the Father placed upon our Lord Jesus our sacrificial Lamb, is there to crucify the sin in our lives, and raise us up to walk a spiritually empowered life for God. Romans 8:13 GNT reads, “For if you live according to your human nature, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you put to death your sinful actions, you will live.”
If you are not killing sin in some way through the help of God’s Spirit you might not be a Christian and you should check yourself. God gave us an example to show how he would kill our sin, first upon Christ, then in our lives, but without us having to die for our sins in the process. Hebrews 10:10 reads, “And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
If you are not killing your sin by the Spirit of God, you should stop, pray and get right with God! Our sins were placed upon Jesus, then Jesus was killed for our sins. Isaiah 53:6 NIV reads, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” 1 Peter 3:18 NIV reads, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.”
We must follow through with what God demonstrated as His approach to sin. By the Spirit, we must crucify sin in our lives, which means to deprive it of food, strength, and opportunity. Jesus did all these things with perfection and His victory becomes ours as we put our faith in his life, death, and resurrection of pure, harmless and sinless obedience. Praise God for His word which He has made available to us so we might know what God has destined to be killed out of us because of the resurrection of Christ, and that declares and shares His victory! LG
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