With the new year comes a new hope, a hope for something better. Often, this is a time of reflection and self-assessment, which is a wonderful tradition. We resolve to break long-standing habits and make new habits. But more often than not, we fail to break these habits.

Why do we keep going back to habits and mistakes that we hate? The answer, unfortunately, is not something that we want to hear.

I don’t think I have ever met a Christian who did not have a story about some flaw or flaws that they have or some temptation that repeatedly trips them up. They will talk about how frustrated they are and how much they hate this weakness in themselves, sometimes to the point that they have given up and just concluded that there is something in them that makes this error impossible for them to overcome.

I have been there, I don’t know about you.

I have wrestled, as much as anyone, I think, with those recurring temptations and the resulting sin. I have struggled to understand why I keep doing the things I hate. Why do I keep running back to those same things? What kind of madness draws me to things I hate?

The answer, it turns out, is even uglier than the problem. As I have gotten older, I have realized that the magnetic power of these sins is not found in what I hate but rather in what I secretly love. I found that in every action or thought that I hate, there are elements that I love, like an addiction that starts in pleasure and ends with a destroyed life and family. It is the secret selfish pleasures that destroy us, not the things we think we hate.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. (Matt 15:19-20 ESV)

There are many reasons to hide things, but in the end, we tend to hide the things we secretly want to keep.

This is why we fail to change because as vile as these evils are, we know there is also a secret pleasure in them, or at the very least there is a certain utility in them.

Freedom to change

So, how do we free ourselves from the things that flow from our own hearts?

Let’s ask John…

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins,

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father,

Instead of resolutions, maybe we should consider confession instead. But here I am not talking about the kind of “after the fact” type of confessions we usually make, but rather, a confession of those desires that lead us to sin in the first place. The path to sin generally starts with a series of decisions based on self-serving desires. Then, as we progress down this path, we suddenly find ourselves in a place of seemingly overwhelming temptation. James says it this way:

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:13-15 ESV)

So, to live free - to walk free, we must be on our guard not just against sinful actions, but we need to allow the Spirit of God to bring our desires under the scrutiny of the Spirit and the authority of Christ. We need to believe that the work of Christ on the cross not only paid for our sins but set us free from the desires that led us to sin in the first place.

Paul says it like this:

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. (Romans 6:4-7 ESV)

Paul concludes this passage with these instructions:

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:11-14 ESV)

Walking in Freedom

So faith is walking in the conviction that the death and resurrection of Jesus was enough. Faith is walking in the knowledge that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us to raise us up from our lower natures and those persistent desires that seem so overwhelming. These desires are, in fact, overwhelming for us on our own. But they are not too much for the power of God through the Spirit, and the sooner we give up on self-help programs and allow the grace of God to set us free, the sooner we will know true freedom.

If self-help actually set us free, Jesus would not have needed to come to us as a baby, teach us, heal us, suffer for us, and die for us. Jesus did this because it was the only way to save us. But we are not simply saved from some future judgment; we are saved from those things which make us slaves to sin now. Not forgiven to see if we can do better next time, but forgiven and empowered by the Spirit of God to walk in freedom, no longer slaves to our lower nature’s desires.

In writing this, God has taken me on a journey of self-examination that was both painful and liberating. After all, to leave behind something our lower nature loves is a loss that can be painful, but the peace and freedom that follows is amazing.

I would like to invite you to join me in this new year on this journey to freedom. Let’s skip making all the empty resolutions and wishful thinking. Instead, let’s push a bit deeper into why we do what we do and allow the Spirit of God to lead us into a truly new and blessed year of peace and joy. Serving God and others with a conscience cleansed and a love empowered by the grace of God.

Have a great week!

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