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The way of righteousness needs to become what we truly are. The letter of the law reveals what we are to do. But it is possible to outwardly do what is right with a wrong attitude. Jesus revealed this principle in Matthew 5: In order to overcome the cause of sin, we need to learn how God wants us to be. Paul expressed this in simple terms in Romans Knowledge is useless unless we understand how to apply it. Every sin we commit is triggered by something we encounter in our daily lives.
We may be late for an appointment. As a result, we get impatient with others if anything happens to further delay us. Every sin is triggered by some occurrence in our daily lives to which we did not respond in a right manner.
From the moment you walk up to the building you can expect…. But thanks to a faithful friend and a forgiving God, David found his way home 2 Samuel One conference speaker told us of how he locked the temptation of television in a cupboard and gave his wife the key. This shows how important it is to deal with sin properly and biblically. God has promised to draw near to us if we draw near to Him Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. His writing is not short on length or on breadth. Meditation helps us to mentally practice putting the right response in place before we are faced by the triggering situation.
In step 2 we should have identified the cause of our sins. As we identify the cause, we should also be taking note of what triggered the sinful response. Meditation helps us to mentally practice putting the right response in place before we are faced by the triggering situation. In our personal time of quiet reflection we can meditate on what we should do when we see or sense a situation may lead to a wrong response. We can call this mentally practicing righteousness. Or, as Paul said in Philippians 4: If we are truly committed to changing, if we really want to overcome these sins, God through His Spirit will spark the right thoughts in our minds if we are asking Him to do so.
God wants us to change. This kind of meditation helps prepare our minds for responding righteously when we should. One way we draw closer to God is by seeking to live righteously.
God has promised to draw near to us if we draw near to Him Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. But to draw close to God, we need to be committed to living His way of life and praying for His help. Right habits take time to build. They will not be built if we do not replace our old habits with new, godly ways of living.
We have to implement what we have learned to actually change the way we live. God offers us His power through His Spirit to help. That power will grow in us. And the ability to use that power will grow as we use it to live rightly. We may not use the right response the first time it is needed.
However, if the right response came to mind even after the fact that was progress.
If we continue to strive to live rightly, we will begin responding sooner. Eventually we will begin responding correctly as our first response. The sin will be replaced with righteousness. Evil will be overcome with good.
These steps have been used and proven to work. But they will only work if we really want to use them. Learn more about the process of change in our free booklet Change Your Life!
A definite plan is needed. Here are seven tried and tested steps that, if used, will help us in overcoming sin. We must want to overcome This sounds simple.
The Bible speaks about being “more than conquerors” over sin. But how? The key lies in following our Forerunner, learnig to overcome sin as Jesus overcame!. Do you want to fight sin but don't know how? Do you want to overcome, yet feel powerless when you're tempted? Then you're in a good position to battle.
Clearly identify the sins we need to overcome To honestly search for and see our own sins is unpleasant. He is difficult to read, in the first place, because of stylistic issues. Though the book has stood up well over the years since its publication, it does feel foreign and antiquated in many regards. There is work to be done to make the transition between the old English and the new. Owen is difficult to read in the second place because of the density of his material. His writing is not short on length or on breadth. I read even just this short chapter three times before I really felt that I understood it.
Having said all of that, I did not find reading this text onerous.
I wanted to read the text carefully and to ensure that I understood Owen. And I wanted to do this because of the long line of godly men and women who have said that this book has challenged them like no other. If it has meant so much to so many of my heroes, I am going to put my hand to the plow and ensure that I learn from it too. I am going to offer a short summary of the chapter and a couple of brief reflections.
The first chapter is an exposition of Romans 8: There were two things that stood out to me in this chapter or at least that stood out above the rest. The first was this statement: But this must not be the same as truly mortifying them. If we are to mortify our sins through the Holy Spirit, sins that we attempt to deal with on our own must not be truly mortified.
We may escape them for a time or make ourselves believe that we have left them behind.
But if they are not truly mortified, they must still exist within, perhaps just waiting for opportunity to spring back. This shows how important it is to deal with sin properly and biblically.