Victory Over Sin

Victory Over Sin

1: We readily offer ourselves to the entertainments of our culture, the philosophies of our generation, the passions of our flesh, the interests of our intellect, and the amusements of our hearts. Then, WHY, when they’ve led us to their natural conclusions and consequences, do we ask God “why this?/why me?

2: If we consider sin an overwhelming foe, must it automatically remain so?

“As soon as you resist mentally any undesirable or unwanted circumstance – you thereby endow it with more power, power which it will use against you, and you will have depleted your own resources to that exact extent.”  (Emmet Fox)

3: God will never lead us into sin.  His answer, from the very beginning, is that we are to offer ourselves to Him first, not the World. If He is first in our affections, can everything else truly become secondary?  How?

4: How is a deep and abiding love for God the ultimate armor against the evil one, and his forbidden fruits?

If God has our strongest affections, sin has met its match.  Sin has power over us only to the extent we offer ourselves to it.  When we wholly offer ourselves to God, sin loses. Grace isn’t just about forgiveness.  It’s about change. God did “His part” with the grace of forgiveness and the opportunity for us to enjoy a “resurrected” life.  Our part begins in the mind. (Tiegreen-Wonder of The Cross)

Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.

Romans 6:13

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:1-2

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:11

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

1 Corinthians 10:13

5: If we count ourselves alive to God, and dead to a particular sin (because we have “sacrificed that sin on the altar”), can we permanently claim victory over it, and live for Him with deficient capacity to ever again abide that sin?

More than a psychological ploy, it’s an effort to deny the evil one’s lies and embrace the Lord’s truth.  If we’re truly dead to (this) sin, then it really has nothing to say to us because it’s no longer a part of our lives.  Just as the temptation of an immigrant to rely on his former language in his new country fades by necessity, so does our temptation to “speak” sin when we are firmly planted in the Kingdom of God.  Ultimately, we don’t fit the old culture anymore because we have intentionally left it behind for a better one.