Satan Will Tempt Us To Obsess Over Our Sins
Below is a quote from an article I wrote for The Gospel Reformation Network titled “Dueling The Dark Lord”. It was an article that was featured as a Part 2 to Clif Daniell’s excellent article “The Fight of Faith”.
Device #3: Satan will tempt us to obsess over our sins so that we fail to have faith in Christ.
These can be sins of the past or sins of the present. It can be sinful actions or our sinful nature. The grip of this device is like a python that seeks to choke faith out of us. When we sink to a level of despair over our sin, we can respond with identifying ourselves by our sin. “This is just who you are. You’ll never change.” Our sin becomes the predominant life narrative. This often leads to responses of legalism or, most often, antinomianism. I am my sin. I am the temptation I face. Union with Christ might be true but I am the sin that I struggle with.
The response to this is often a felt powerlessness in the face of our sin. We no longer remember the truths of Romans 6 and the riches of our identity in Christ. We neglect the power and grace of the Holy Spirit to enable us to fight sin. We even forget the comforting truths of Romans 7 and the reality that Christians do struggle and fight against sin. If we embrace this device, there is no longer any fight. There is surrendering unto the identity and power of sin. Eventually that leads to us taking the glorious truth of Romans 8:1 that “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” and we re-word it to sound like, “Sin is now no longer condemned so you don’t need to worry about fighting it.”
Click here for the full article.