I find myself dealing with the same old sins everyday…

If you’re dealing with the same sins everyday – you need to change something. You need to get serious and find out what it is that is keeping you locked into this pattern! Think about it: what if, every single day, a big, nasty dog came and peed on your front door, sat outside and barked his head off at your cat (who’s sitting in the window minding her own business) dug a foot deep hole in your yard, and then left 2 or 3 “piles” in your grass? What would you do?? Just put up with it? Moan a little about how bad it is that this happens everyday? Or find some way to make it STOP!!

So, what is it that is keeping you locked into these sins? Is it just fleshly laziness, demonic attachment – or both?

Let’s say you find yourself in a constant state of getting angry. Not just once in a while – whenever someone crosses you, whenever a driver does something you don’t like, whenever you have to do anything that inconveniences you. You finally realize that you don’t like yourself very much this way – but you just can’t seem to get a handle on it all for very long, hard as you try. How do you know how to approach this, how to determine why you are gaining no Victory over this even though you are a committed Believer?

First and foremost, you need to understand and agree that sin is sin is sin – it doesn’t matter if it’s “a slip of the tongue” or becomes what we like to term an “addiction”. It doesn’t matter if it’s a simple thing like losing your temper, or a more serious thing like pornography – it is ALL disobedience to God’s way, which is the Way of Love.

Anger hurts you, your family, your friends and of course, the God Who loves you. It creates in your own body effects on your nervous system which can lead to stiffened arteries and even heart attack. It affects other people at first emotionally and eventually physically. You actually are sending spiritual “javelins” into the heart of a person when you grow angry with them and throw hurtful words their way. This can become even more detrimental to them than if you were literally striking them with your fists. And then, there comes the point where fists DO get involved in uncontrolled anger…

I grew up with a very angry father. You never knew when he was going to explode into a fit of anger, never knew what you were going to say or do that would egg him into a loud, yelling harangue that would last 15, 20 minutes or more. And then continue after he had left the room long enough to think of all the things he hadn’t yet said, and return to pour them out, too. You see, he never learned to calmly air his hurts and frustrations one at a time as they came along – but rather would bottle it all up for days until it finally blew the top off his ability to hold it in anymore.

As much as I longed to become the patient, sweet, phlegmatic woman my Mother was – by the time I had had 5 children, I found my father “speaking out of my mouth” far more often than my Mom. And I just couldn’t get a handle on it. No matter how much it alarmed me – once I got “tried” to the top of my patience, the anger took over and out flew the flaming swords of ugly words.

I finally became desperate. I believe this was the first step. The Lord had led me to the very end of myself – it was either get rid of this problem once and for all, or wander far away from the God I loved. I chose the former!

What He led me to do was to look up (Google is great for this) ALL of the Scriptures that speak of anger. The list generated both the bad effects and the good effects of holding your tongue/anger. I copied them onto small pieces of paper – like a Post-it Note – and taped them ALL over my house. EVERYWHERE I would normally cast my eyes: the kitchen cabinets, the TV, the bathroom mirrors, my dresser mirror, the doors and windows… Anywhere I would see them throughout my day. And praying always for the Lord’s help, whenever I saw one, I stopped what I was doing long enough to stand there and read it through and quickly ask the Lord to imprint that message on my heart.

Walk with me through what this looked like in daily life then. Okay – say I blew it – screamed at one of the kids and told them things I had no business saying. Once I realized what was happening, I would go off by myself (I was usually still worked up enough that apologizing wouldn’t have gone over so well yet…) I would get my full list of Scriptures in front of me and spent some serious time thinking about how this all not only affected the kids – but affected the Lord. I would think about how much He loved me, how He DIED ON THE CROSS to pay for my sin of anger/swearing. This wasn’t to produce guilt as much as remind me that my attitude towards sin had to get more serious.

I would then pray earnestly and ask the Lord to forgive me and to STOP DOING THIS. Every time I would slip. You can’t just sit down and give up! You have to stop right there – one look at a child’s face would usually accomplish that. Tell Him you’re really sorry. Get determined in your heart that you will try even harder – get back up and start over. HE IS RIGHT THERE WITH YOU! HE wants you to succeed!! Then, of course, I would go make it right again with the child I offended…

The other thing that made this sin problem even worse was the presence of demons. You see, if you open the door for them just a crack in sin – they will pry and pry until they get through – and then invite a whole host of more in, too. Now you’re fighting yourself as well as their influence. I didn’t know about that so much back then – and thankfully, the Lord had mercy on me and cleared me anyway. Thankfully, we now also have the Binding Prayer to help us with this.

One of the first and most deadly things the demons do with us is make us blind to how Jesus sees our sin. He ISN’T condemning us for it, like they do. But it does sadden Him when we don’t put our “shoulders to the plow” and do our best to gain victory, when we don’t give this weakness up to Him over and over and over again, at least trying to get the upper hand on it.

Yes, I completely understand. Your sin may be very difficult to stop, to give up. You may be struggling terribly. But…have you struggled as unto death yet, like Jesus? Like many of the apostles? No… He never said it would be easy. He’s only assured us that He is with us, and will help us through it all, no matter how hard or long it is.

Don’t give up. Don’t sit back and let the demons convince you that you “can’t do it”. Hugs, Dear Ones. Trusting in Jesus, you CAN do this!!

Carol Jennings