Question : I find it so difficult to have personal holiness consistently, I cry out to the Lord, but still not been able to completely get myself free from habitual sins. If one day I am so much in touch with the Lord, then another day I would do some sin and feel so guilty to come to him. I can't get over my flesh, or crucify it. Hmm..may be I don't listen to the Holy Spirit, and do everything to crave my desires. Help..?
Answer : Greetings to you in Jesus name! We have not yet become perfect to live sinless in this earthly life that we live for God. The writer to the Hebrews clearly said, "14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. 15 But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, 16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” 17 then He adds,“Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” 18 Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin." (Heb 10:14-18). In other words, the above verses convey that though we are sanctified progressively more and more each day in to the likeness of Jesus to live a overcoming sin free lives, we have already been perfected forever in Christ Jesus to face sin and destroy it power as He had already overcome sin and have promised to us all that it will not have dominion over us (Rom 6:14). Now we do not overcome sin to please God, but we believe that Jesus has already overcome for us to please God, as we are under grace. The law makes us perform, because it will make us acceptable before God only when we overcome sin, but grace makes us overcomers in Christ Jesus by believing His promises itself and from that high position gives us a opportunity to deny it and kill its existence in our lives.
Yes we all have our high moments of joy when we live sin free and exercise dominion over sin, but when we have our low moments when we fall in to habitual sin of repeated failings due to the weakness of our sin nature within, we must humbly submit to God and ask for His forgiveness (Jam 4:7-8), after which immediately we must believe that it is forgiven by believing the promise of God that says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9). Once we believe it is forgiven, we must praise and thank God for forgiving and cleansing us through the blood of Jesus Christ (1 John 1:7). If we do this simple step by faith, this is our victory (1 John 5:4). After this the spirit of lust or temptation that might have caused us to fall in to sin will immediately flee away from us, so that it will not continue to have dominion over us (Rom 6:12).
Guilt is good as long as it leads you to the Lord for receiving forgiveness (Heb 5:14), anything that causes you to run away from the Lord is not a spiritually healthy feeling and it will be that the enemy Satan and his demonic cohorts are the ones who do this kind of accusatory work against us within our hearts after tempting us to fall in to sin (Rev 12:9-10). Satan and his demons cannot accuse any of the believers anymore before God as they have all been thrown out of heaven once and for all time. But the only route the devils have to discourage believers is to influence them to sin and then make themselves condemned for their sinful actions. We must resist the devil by speaking the word of testimony that we have of being washed in the blood of Jesus by faith and then must allow the Lord to cause such soulish desires within us to die by denying it to operate in our body (Rev 12:11). What we feed will grow, what we choose to starve will die progressively (Mattt 3:6-8, 12). By being baptized in the Holy Spirit and praying in the Holy Spirit, progressively all these areas of chaff which is the evil desires of the flesh can be burnt by the fire that God releases in to our lives through speaking in tongues (Matt 3:11-12).
Any sin that makes us condemned and makes us run away from the Lord is from the evil one. So as soon as possible, run to the Lord to confess your sin instead of trying to run away from Him. No matter how many times you fall, you run to the Lord and He will receive you. If the Lord has told us to forgive others, seventy times seven which is to forgive as many times as some one defaults you and sin against you (Mat 18:21-22), how much more countless times will He be ready to forgive and receive us when we fall in to sin?
Even the most holy man on earth living as a human will have some sin in their life to some degree (Eccl 7:20), except only one man on earth who lived a sinless life which is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Cor 5:21; 1 Tim 2:5). We are not just sinners by choice, but we are sinners by birth (Psa 51:5). We are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners (Rom 5:12, 8; 3:23). All of us will become sinless only when we die and go on to be with our Lord Jesus (1 John 1:10), because the sin nature loses its grip over us only when we die physically (2 Cor 5:8; Rom 7:5; Gen 3:19). The sin in the flesh will be discarded from us only when we die physically (Rom 6:23; 7:24-25), but the sin in the flesh has been condemned already by God as Jesus lived on behalf of us a overcoming sinless life on earth (Rom 8:3).
Because Jesus was crucified on behalf of us, we need not again try to crucify our flesh but rather we must believe that sin is no more our master, as apostle Paul explains this concept saying, "6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin." (Rom 6:6-7). You must understand crucifying is not something we must do or even try, it is a fact that has already happened to us all in Christ Jesus. We see apostle Paul again reminding the legalistic Galatians who again tried to crucify their flesh by keeping the law of God, "24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." (Gal 5:24-25). See in the above verses Paul the apostle was speaking about the crucifying of the flesh of believers in the past tense, as something that has already happened. Also in other words, Paul was exhorting the believers of Galatia to walk being led by the power of the Spirit which overcomes the power of sin, as they all belong to Christ already and were living in the Spirit (Rom 8:9-11, 14). When we start to walk in the power of the Spirit being led by Him from within our spirit-man, automatically the sinful flesh will be defeated and thus we will be able to walk fulfilling the will of God to serve Him loyally and faithfully (Gal 5:16-18; 1 Peter 4:1-6). When we walk by faith in the Lord Jesus being led by His Holy Spirit who speaks the very words He speaks to us from heaven (John 16:14), we are actually wearing the Lord Jesus as a garment of power and protection against the lust of the flesh, so in doing it we deny provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust through our physical body (Rom 13:14). For the words of Jesus which we hear within us begins to act out of us as the word of authority, when we start to speak it out against the mountains of lust that the devil might try to bring against us. The spirit of lust is throw out of us which is the temple of God and is thrown in to the sea of the world around us when we give a word of faith command against all evil (Eccl 8:4; Matt 21:21-22).
So knowing this fact is one thing, but to apply these fact in the time of temptation is totally another thing, that is why Paul said, "8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace." (Rom 6:8-14). When we choose to make sin starve in our flesh without yielding to its temptation, it will die a slow death, but it will die ultimately at some point of time. Praise the Lord!
Believing this doctrine of holiness is important to live a life of holiness, that is why apostle Paul said, "17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness...22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life." (Rom 6:17-19, 22).
The same point apostle Peter in his epistles emphasized to the believers saying, " 1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. " (1 Peter 4:1-2), do not forget to mark this in your Bible. When you keep fighting sin, sin will cease when God who sees your sincerity will give you the power to overcome it in His appointed time (1 Cor 10:13). God allows temptation to come against us from the evil one to keep us humble and to make us be spiritual fruitful in our lives by keeping pride away from us (1 Cor 10:12; 2 Cor 12:7; 1:3-7; Luke 22:31-32).
But sin can never have dominion over you as Jesus has once and for all time has won over it (Rom 6:14). If you have heard the truth of the gospel and Jesus has freed you from sin by saving you from it, you are free indeed (John 8:32, 36). Praise the Lord!
So the bottom line is, reject sin and fight it until it dies. Kill sin before it kills your abundant soul life that Jesus gives to all the overcomers (John 10:10). Never let sin reign in your mortal body that it should make you obey its lust.
Much Blessings...
