How Do You Deal With Your Sin?

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23

The Bible teaches that every person is born with a sinful nature. Just observe young children in a room full of toys with no supervision and this truth becomes quite evident. Our sinful nature causes us to think, feel and act contrary to God’s standard for appropriate conduct. Living in sin is in direct opposition to living by God’s Spirit which produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Have you ever asked the question, “Why is there so much evil in the world?” The answer is simple—human beings possess a sinful nature.

Even though the news stations validate this fact every evening, people still want to deny this reality. When humans don’t believe God’s diagnosis about the human condition, they develop in vain their own remedies to try to control behavior.

I have discovered that there are three ways to deal with sinful behavior.

(1) We can try to manage our sinful behavior.

Many support groups and psychotherapists operate with this philosophy. People are taught to identify their problem, and then they are instructed to follow some program or system to manage their behavior. These programs might deter bad behavior, but they never eliminate it. They are like putting a band-aid on a wound. A band-aid covers the wound, but it does not heal it. Similar to a dormant volcano that will eventually become active and erupt, it only takes the right circumstance or person to cause the sinful behavior in the person to manifest.

(2) We can try to medicate our sinful behavior.

All sinful behavior is detrimental to our health. More Americans report being depressed. We have had a revolution in the United States in identifying and treating depression, searching for its genetic causes and developing new families of antidepressant drugs. Yet we see no reduction in depression.

The nation's scales are going up...up...up...and it's clear that we have an obesity health crisis on our hands.

Mental disorders are common in the United States. An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. More than 22 million Americans age 12 and older are addicted to drugs and alcohol.

The cover story of the December 1st, 2008 Time magazine issue was on the sorry state of American health. Despite advances in medicine, Americans are less healthy than we used to be, and the next generation may be even worse. It seems our solutions aren’t working.

(3) We can murder (crucify) our sinful nature.

The Bible not only teaches that humans are born with a sinful nature, but there is nothing we can do to remedy this condition. That is why we need a Savior! Jesus saves us from our sins. He does for us what is impossible to do for ourselves.

Galatians 5:24 says, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” We murder or crucify our sinful nature by receiving Jesus as our Lord and Savior, repenting of our sins, getting baptized in water and living life filled with God’s Spirit.

We can try our ways or God’s way to antidote sin. History has taught us that only one has proven to transform human beings for the better.

Guess which one it is.