Wednesday, July 5, 2023 Some material taken from What Do We Do When We Mess Up? by John Strappazon
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:1-4
Finding Our Way Out of Sin and Back to God
We all sin and we all mess up sometimes because we are human. God knew we would mess up because there is no way that we could ever be without sin. Jesus is the only human that ever lived that was sin free and that is because He was God and man. He knew that even after we are saved we would still mess up at times and He made a way for us to get out of our messes and back into His presence where we belong.
Sometimes we feel like we no longer deserve His goodness because we have sinned. We feel like He must see us as unworthy to receive any grace and forgiveness from Him, or we have used it all up. We have messed up so many times, going to him and asking for forgiveness, that we start to wonder if it is possible that He could still love us. Feelings of hopelessness can keep us in our sin because we feel there is no way God could still want us. But nothing could be further from the truth. He waits patiently for us to come back.
Why Do We Sin?
Paul said it best when he said - I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7:15-20
So why do we sin when we don’t want to? We desire to do good things, yet there is a struggle going on inside us - a struggle between wanting to do the right thing, and actually doing it. Sometimes we sin because we don’t realize that it was a sin. Other times we sin because we weren’t thinking about it. And sometimes we sin because we want to. We know it is sin but we do it anyway. It is not a lack of desire or a lack of knowledge, it is just our sinful nature.
What do we do when we are caught in sin? The first thing we do is to accept responsibility for what we have done. Don’t try to hide it or make excuses - God already knows. Just own it. Confess your sin to God. You have acknowledged it, faced it, and confessed to God. Now it is time to get up, repent – or turn away from that sin – and go on. How does that happen? Through the shed blood of Jesus on the cross that has paid for all our sins and given us new life, and a new start, every time we mess up. When we confess He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin. God acknowledges our guilt in sin, and then sets us free because the payment for the crime has already been made.
God never intended for us to live in shame and to be identified by the sins we commit. We also can never do anything in our own power to be justified after we sin. It is only the shed blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses that justifies us before God. Because of that shed blood, we can get up and move forward.
