Radical Amputation of Sin

Sigh. How stupid we can be. Or I can be.

One of Satan's primary methods to get us to doubt God is to say, "Did God really say that?" (Genesis 3:1).

It is certainly this way when we view the scripture that says, "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off." God certainly didn't say that, did He? Well, yes, He did. And that was Jesus, not some old testament prophecy. That was the man (man-God) who as He hung on the cross said, "forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."

What I understand about my addiction is that when I leave any room at all for visual tastes to be fed on a regular basis, I eventually fall into sin. So, TV and movies should generally be left out of my repertoire. Hard to do when your new roommate (while you are separated from your wife) has cable TV (though ratings locked) and you have a computer on which you can watch movies (not ratings locked, though filtered for Covenant Eyes). Hard to do, I say, but not impossible. You have to WANT it.

I recently approached some of the more aggressive gentlemen in my 12-step recovery program at Celebrate Recovery, and one of the first things that they said is that I need to engage in "radical and aggressive amputation", that I need to rid myself of any patterned behavior that may lead to sin, even if I have to quit my job, move, etc. The next thing that they said is that I need to fill my life with prayer and worship, and work to get delivered from each and every image that the Holy Spirit convicts me of.

They recommended that I place a reminder/alert on my cell phone for every hour to remind me to pray and worship God. This has helped me set a new daily thought pattern, and it has definitely set new levels of faith and confidence in my heart. I feel more ready to meet God than ever before, and I have a lot less anxiety. They also recommended that I change the spiritual atmosphere around me by playing an audio bible or worship music throughout my day.

When my wife reads this, she's probably going to smack me upside the back of my head, because she has been saying things like this for our whole marriage. The big difference now is that I have burly men that are willing to pull alongside me to hold me accountable, and I actually WANT it now. I know that there may be frustration on her part that the ruination of our family has not caused me to want these things, to want to be completely free. I can't explain why that didn't dissuade me from my sins, except to say that the Holy Spirit has seized hold of my heart and given me a desire for Him.

Whatever you want to call these things that lead to sin... triggers, gateways, footholds, strongholds, etc. You've got to utterly destroy them in your life. You have to cut anything and everything from your life that is going to directly allow you to sin. And you have to WANT it.

Lord, please work in my heart to destroy every last shred of the pornographic spirit, release me from its bond on my heart, from the sexual sins of the past, every woman that I have ever been bound to, and set me free! I know that Jesus died for all my sins, I know that He died to set my free, and that I am free indeed. I pray that I would live for your glory, and to honor others greater than myself. Please let me honor my wife and never harm her again in these ways. Please let me have an increased respect and love for my family, to treat them with the care that Jesus gave to His church. And help me to WANT it.

Ready for Battle

As I mentioned in my last post about fleeing from sin and fleeing to God, our Lord equips us with the full armor described in Ephesians 6 - Salvation, Righteousness, Truth, the Gospel, Faith, and the Word of God.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:10-17 NLT)

These should all be ready in our arsenal as we go about our days. Find ways to pray for those who are close to you, and those that you meet for whom God gives you a heart. Meditate on God's word. Bring God into every situation and ask Him to show you how to glorify Him as you go about your business, as you shop, as you socialize, as you do everything. Pray without ceasing. Treasure His word in your heart. But most of all, ready yourself for battle.


Never forget that Satan prowls like a roaring lion, ready to devour the weak. Be on guard, and realize that we are in a war that will not end until Satan and his followers are thrown into the lake of fire. Always be vigilant, and never allow laziness to overtake your mind as you live your life. That may mean changing your habits, finding ways to be honest about all of those things that may lead to sin - triggers, pathways, etc. Remember, if you are on the battle field, you're not in the act of compromising with the enemy - your complete purpose is to kill the enemy and not allow them any foothold in your camps, no stronghold in your realms. Same thing as you battle for ground in your heart and in your mind. You do not want the sin nature that is evident in your flesh to gain any ground - you want to pummel it into submission and put to death the deeds of the flesh.

Just as much as sin chips away at the man that you were meant to be (until you become a wraith-like shadow of what you could have become), becoming more Christ-like will enable you to be everything that men were ever meant to be - sacrificial, protective, undeterred by evil, and focused on doing the Father's work and being champions for His kingdom.

Though we shouldn't be completely obsessed with fear for our enemy, we should be aware of his snares, traps, and lies, and be ever vigilant to meet them head on with all of the full arsenal of our Lord.

What is Addiction, to the Christian?

There are many Christians that want to deny the wording "addiction" as it pertains to those who are caught in habitual sin altogether. As the world tends to label addiction a helpless state from which a sinner cannot pull themselves, that they were born with a propensity for a behavior (such as alcohol, homosexuality, sexual sin), and the worldly position all to often posits that addicts likely have these tendencies programmed into their bodies and brains, it's understandable that Christians would want to reject these wordly definitions altogether. I would posit that the bible does leave room for habitual sin, but defines it in a different manner: 

Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy. (Romans 9:16 NLT)

Paul is here defining a life dedicated to sin, where the non-believer is a slave to their impurity, the fleshliness of their sin and the further depravity that resulted from their ongoing dedication to sin. This can also be associated with what the scriptures label as the "old man".

The question then remains, however, if a Christian is automatically delivered from this old nature and has absolutely no sin in their lives as a result of becoming saved and being in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit, the very nature of Christ. I would posit that though Christians have every tool at their disposal to defeat the old nature and resist temptation, there is a possibility that a Christian would continue to stumble in particular areas of sin:

So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.  And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.  (Romans 7:14-20 NLT)

Paul here defines for us a nature that perseveres beyond the time that we become believers, and an ongoing war that is waged between the old nature and the new nature, the "new creation" that God begins in us and has promised to perfect/complete.

I think we need to differentiate between the person that is comfortable with and dedicated to their sinful lives in a unrepentant manner (Galaltians 5:21 and elsewhere tells us that such sinful dedication is a sign that a person is not truly saved), and a person that hates sin, is actively working to combat it and moving the pieces of their lives to actively repent against sin.

For an addict, the level of habitual sin in their lives may be too much to escape, even once they become believers. There is usually no magical deliverance even for true believers, and the ongoing patterns of preoccupation with a sin, then acting out, then feeling shame, then moving back into the cycle starting with preoccupation (even if it is fought) are too much for the believer to escape if they do so in isolation and without the tools they need to be free.

But the Christian and sin can never be friends. A Christian will never live in the practice of sin and be happy with those activities. It is a bondage, a slavery to the flesh from which the Christian should desire utter freedom. If you are a believer in Christ, you should want to be free, and should be willing to "cut off your right hand" (separate from the most important things to you) to be free from your sin. If you aren't willing to separate from any given thing or situation to be free from your sin, you should then be concerned about your security as a believer. If Christ's death on the cross, your family, and all of the other holy things that God has entrusted to you are not worth enough to you to change anything and everything you possibly can to flee immorality, you may want to examine your conversion experience, and whether or not Jesus is really your Lord, or just your sugar daddy in the sky.

God is a loving Father and Friend. He desires your fellowship, your worship, your dedication. He is always willing to forgive and release you from your sin, and is longsuffering in the process. But His plan may very well involve you having to deal with the consequences of your sin, and you have to be willing to submit to His plan, His ways, and then His rewards. His way is going to be so much better than the pit of despair in which you're living.

My next posts will deal more with some of the basic steps that it takes to combat sin. I hope you'll follow me on this journey and take up the tools of warfare to be victorious once and for all over these beasts that have continued to inhibit your joy in Christ.