Help, I Am Discouraged Over My Sins
Occasionally I get messages from people who are struggling in sin. They long for freedom, they long to honor God, and yet within them they find the wrestle unbelievably difficult. I always have a soft spot for these types of questions because I’ve been there in my years as a Christian. I know what it’s like to long for holiness and fail. I know what it’s like for the grace of God to meet me on my darkest days. I also know what it’s like to walk in purity and obedience by the power of that same grace.
I do not write as someone who is unaware of the pains of striving after honoring God.
“I’m really struggling in my battle with sin…” they wrote. “I continue to fail and I don’t know what to do…I feel horrible because I’m willingly doing this knowing it’s wrong. I just can’t overcome the temptations and I feel selfish for it.”
My response
Hi friend,
It's really commendable that you are desiring to take your holiness seriously. I know God looks on that and is proud. It's always hard to take a paragraph from someone and know how to guide them in a response, because if we were in person I'd ask all kinds of questions about you, your view of God...etc.
So I'll just offer this thought and you can do what you wish with it. :)
There's an old book called The Lifting Up of The Downcast. In it, an old puritan says:
“When a man is truly humbled and grieved for sin, the object of his grief is sin, as a dishonor done unto God: when a man is discouraged and not humbled, then his trouble is all about his condition, and what will become of him.”
― William Bridge, A Lifting Up for the Downcast
What William Bridge is getting at here is very important for our fighting against our sin well. Is the “object of your grief” your sin? Or yourself?
There is a big difference, a difference God cares about, in hating sin and hating self. Yes to hating sin. No to hating self. Remember 1st Peter 1:18-19 "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot."
God so highly valued you, while you were sinful, that He spent the most precious currency He had to save you and gather you to himself... His son's life. Yes, our sin is serious and we should take it seriously. But that does not include thinking yourself into the pits of discouragement because you are so bad.
Look, one of the basics of the Gospel (that we all must be reminding ourselves of) is that Christ wanted us while we were sinners. (Romans 5:8) And the way we grow out of sin is not by looking at our sin or by looking at ourselves, but by looking at Jesus. It feels so counterintuitive because we don't think we can get near him when we are sinful, as if we have to clean ourselves up before we can draw near. This is often why we feel so discouraged.
But, He wanted us while we were dirty, didn't He? So that means we are not in a state that is unlovable to God because this was the exact state we were in when He decided to die for us.
Rest in this Gospel, my friend. We do not fight our sin to earn God's love, we fight our sin because of God's love.
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Fighting for holiness with you,
Josh.