I'm nursing a bad cold today, so I will not take a lot of time here. At the American Thinker today, Monroe Wesson has a piece entitled Escaping the State of Sin. From some of what he says, I suspect Wesson has had personal experience with one of the many 12 step programs. But he is correct that whatever your personal sin is, the solution is not to identify with it, but instead to rely on the power of Jesus Christ to forgive you sins, and to root them out of your life. He is right too that these proclivities we all have are put there to glorify God, to show His power to the world.
Sinning -- everyone does it. That is why God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to atone for our sins and provide a way that we can repent and become free of our sins. So why do some people find it so hard to accept their choices are sins? There are lies now accepted as truth, all designed to prevent people from repenting. While I knew this was the case, I didn’t realize how much it permeated the culture until I read an advice column about dealing with people who sin in a specific way. The first paragraph is as follows, (I’ve edited it, because when you fill in the type of sin, people suddenly lose all objectivity and treat the sins differently… as if one sin was preferable or better than another.)
“A person’s ___ isn’t a “lifestyle choice.” ____ people don’t choose to be ___; they are born that way. They can’t change being ____ any more than you can change being ____.”
You could fill in the blanks with all types of sins (gambling, alcoholism, drug addiction, theft, sexual deviancy, violence, etc…) and the basic premise remains the same. There is a lot to unpack, so I’m going to dissect this.
Wesson then proceeds to dissect and take apart the "advice" given to this individual by making clear that to continue is in fact his choice. Whatever we have, it is always our choice. What we need to to is turn to God to repent, and ask for help. Paul talks about this as the "thorn in his side." God doesn't relieve me of all my character defects because he knows I will get a swelled head if he did. Rather, he relieves me of some of them if he has a specific task for me, only to set them back. When one of these things comes up, I need to immediately repent and ask for forgiveness. I also use the method Jesus himself used: "Get behind me Satan." Then go about me life as if he did indeed do it and depend on Him to keep me on the straight and narrow.
One of the things I noticed in 12 step programs is that there is a tendency to remain trapped in that identity, as "I am an alcoholic." Yes, that will always be part of your identity, but you were born for so much more. You were born to be a child of God, one of Jesus brothers and sisters. Yes, 12 step programs get you going, but eventually, you must leave the nest, so to speak, and become what you were meant to be, and not your addiction. The only reason to keep identifying with your addiction is because you love it more than God. That way lies disaster.
“They can’t change being ____ any more than you can change being ____.” This is also true. Anyone that has been in a twelve-step program will learn this in step 1. “Admit you are powerless over your addiction and that your life has become unmanageable.” The most important part of overcoming sin is admitting that you can’t change on your own. It is incredibly important to accept this fact and to learn to stop judging yourself when you sin. But that isn’t the end of the journey to healing. Step 2 is “Come to believe that a power stronger than you can heal you.” You have probably gathered that the higher power that helped me was Jesus Christ. Whenever modern society talks about sins, they never talk about getting away from it, but simply your helplessness to get away from it. Yes, we can’t get away from sin on our own. That is why God sent Jesus Christ. Christ can change us. He can change our nature. He can make it so you don’t have to live in sin. He can fix the problem. You can’t.
Modern society tries to excuse sinful behavior by telling us that people can’t control themselves, because it is in their nature, and because it is in their nature, then they can’t be held accountable for their sins and therefore they do not need to repent.
This is a pernicious lie, created to drag men’s souls down to the same pit of misery and woe that our adversary inhabits. It uses truth to support a bad conclusion.
Wesson closes with a lesson in how to handle the sinners we know. But really, it follows from the Golden Rule: Do to others as you would have them do to you. Realizing that the individual is sick in spirit:
With all this in mind, how should we handle the sinners we know. #1) Don’t judge them. We all make mistakes, there is no use being self-righteous because your sins are different than theirs. Also, quit judging yourself. Accept that you are imperfect, and that God made you that way so that Christ can perfect you. If you must judge yourself, it should only be to the point of, “that was a sin, I need to repent.” Then go repent. #2) Treat them with kindness, yes, this includes yourself. #3) Don’t enable sinful behavior. Advocating to make sins socially acceptable or legal is going to ruin many, many lives. Don’t bail people out of the consequences of their bad decisions. #4) Protect the innocent. This means if you know someone’s sins are harming another person, especially a child, it needs to be reported to authorities. If you know the individual will cause harm to someone at a social gathering, do not invite them. If the person does not have a known history of harming others, then you have no reason not to invite them. #5) Invite them to repent, but don’t be overbearing about it. If they decline or reject your invitation, that is their choice, it shouldn’t change how you treat them.Now, I will go back to nursing my cold.
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