"Forgive Us Our Sins!" Part Two

Do we need to focus on overcoming our sins? One could easily come to that conclusion based on the widespread popularity of the topic in popular Christian books, sermons, and Bible studies. Sin management often seems to be the reason for public ministry.

Overcoming sinful actions in life constitutes the thoughts and energy of many sincere Christians. They are completely dedicated to stopping the wrong things they do and replacing them with actions that glorify God. Their motives are certainly pure but their goal and focus is completely misguided.

Scripture does not call us to direct our attention toward our sins and exert our energy on eliminating them. In fact, this approach will not only be ineffective in reducing sinful actions but will also increase wrong behavior in our lifestyles. The Bible teaches that we shouldn’t focus on sins at all. Instead, we should give Jesus Christ our undivided attention.

If we fixate on what we do wrong and try to figure out how to conquer the bad behavior, we will always come up with some sort of plan that involves our own willpower and determination. When that happens, it doesn’t matter how sincere we might be. We are setting ourselves up to fail. And even when we ask for God’s help, He will not help us with OUR method. He will let us fail until we  come to the place where we are willing to learn and accept HIS answer concerning our sinful actions.

Any approach we take in overcoming our own sins through self-discipline is legalistic because it stirs up within us the false hope that there is something WE can do to defeat it. Jesus Christ within us has already defeated sin. When we try to do what He has already accomplished, we are then denying the sufficiency of His grace and are attempting to utilize a legalistic method to do it ourselves.

Legalistic attempts to overcome sins by self-imposed rules and self-determination are to sins what gasoline is to flames. It won’t stop them – it will only make matters worse. Jesus defeated sin once and for all. Transformation comes to our lifestyle when we simply believe that reality and stop trying to do something that He has already done.

 The book of Hebrews points out that the Old Testament sacrifices of the priests were ineffective in perfectly freeing the people from their sins. Hebrews 10:3 tells us that IF the Old Testament sacrifices had permanently dealt with the sins of the people, they would have stopped focusing on sins completely. They would “no longer have consciousness of sins.” Why? It’s because there would have been no need to focus on something that had been permanently and perfectly put away.

That’s exactly what Jesus did when He offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. He dealt with every sin we would ever commit in our lifetimes and even crucified the old self which caused us to want to sin in the first place. Jesus rolled out a new covenant under which our sins would be put away and we would never have to FOCUS on them again!

The lie that we need to focus on overcoming our sins is so very dangerous because it takes our eyes off Jesus within us and puts them on our sins and an imaginary ability we think we have to solve the matter ourselves.

If it seems to you that I’m minimizing sin here, I ask you to consider this possibility: I’m not the one who is minimizing sin. Instead, the people who teach that we need to focus on overcoming our sins are the ones who minimize sins. Their teaching suggests that sin is so weak that it can be overcome by religious self-discipline.

Only one person could effectively deal with your sins, and He did – perfectly and completely. You don’t have to tiptoe through life worried that you’re going to step on a land mine of temptation and be destroyed by sin. You can run with carefree abandon through the fields of grace, knowing that your Father has swept the field for you already. It is His responsibility to see that you make it through life without being destroyed by sin.

If you fall down, He will pick you up, dust you off, and set you back on your course again. With assurance of that reality, you never have to focus on sins again. Just focus on Jesus living in you and united to you forever. And as you do, you’ll be amazed at the way sinful inclinations and temptations lose their power over you.

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace.”

There’s nothing else in life so worthy of your gaze or so effective in causing you to live your life the way God intends.