You had believed it gone forever. But over and over you have found yourself enticed back into the darkness from which Jesus Christ saved you. You have yearned for release from its bondage, known guilt when each act was passed, asked forgiveness for having fallen, only to have it claim you again. For twenty-five years I found myself in an endless cycle of sexual addiction until I spiritually understood that His grace had set me free.
Today I write of more that just freedom from sexual addiction. I write of deliverance from sin in a believer’s life. Sin is nothing more than an addiction. Something you can’t control. Any act that results from your old nature instead of your new is counted as sin.
Let’s consider sex. God created sex for more than just the ability to procreate; it is also His gift for our enjoyment and fulfillment. In yielding to the Holy Spirit, a Christian honors God by keeping sex within the bounds of marriage, by treating his marriage partner with consideration, and in all his actions respecting God’s gift. Sex, in this example, has been brought under the control of the Holy Spirit. However, when man yields to his carnal nature, he perverts God’s gift. A person who doesn’t know Christ is lost in his addiction. The child of God is spiritually free, but may not have experienced physical deliverance from his sin.
Satan desires to keep you in despair, and self-condemnation. Each time you give into temptation your bondage becomes greater, and your ability to break free becomes less. Then how you do break out of this cycle that has no end? God says about His Word, “It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). The Word is our weapon against the enemy! “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (II Corinthians 10:4). Addiction to sin is a stronghold, but the power to annihilate it is found in the Bible.
When a Christian repeatedly yields to sin, spiritual oneness with the Lord is broken...
When a Christian repeatedly yields to sin, spiritual oneness with the Lord is broken, and he can’t comprehend the power found in the grace of God. But there is still hope, because as sin’s hold tightens, Christ’s grace abounds even more (Romans 6:20b). To be released from the bondage of your past, you have to know grace. Not just to have a mental conception of it. To spiritually know grace is be one with its power.
Sin’s ability to control your life has been brought under the power of Christ’s grace. When Christ baptized you into new life, His sacrifice also baptized you into His death (Romans 6:3). What does this mean? He has taken the sin that plagues you to the grave, and buried its power to control you! Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, now you are raised from spiritual death, and able to live your life free from sin’s grasp. (Romans 6:4).
“I’ve tried to believe and break free from this addiction for years, and it just didn’t work.” I have heard many times.
Of course it didn’t work! A phrase exists in this remark which reveals a Christian’s level of spiritual maturity. A person who struggles to believe in the grace of Jesus hasn’t experienced the grace of Jesus. He may understand in his mind that Jesus Christ can set him free, but doesn’t believe in his heart that all things are possible with God.
Faith should grow from the moment Jesus Christ is accepted as Lord. You don’t begin your spiritual journey with developed faith! For strong faith to be real in a believer’s life, a seed must first be planted, then nourished into a young shoot, and encouraged to grow into a thriving plant with deep-seated roots. If you are a new believer, don’t isolate yourself because your roots are shallow and sin harasses you. Jesus Christ didn’t save you in your perfection. He saved you in your brokenness. Seek mature Christians for guidance. As you grow in Christ’s grace, the power of that grace increases.
Each believer faces temptation, but it is what is done with that temptation which reveals his true allegiance.
Each believer faces temptation, but it is what is done with that temptation which reveals his true allegiance. If you succumb to the sin from which Jesus saved you, you become stagnant in your faith. The Bible says that knowledge of the Word of God sets you free (John 8:32). Maybe you haven’t experienced that freedom, because mind-over-matter doesn’t work. Only spiritual knowledge has the ability to release you.
As a Christian seeks to know the Word, he identifies and experiences its message. Faith increases, and temptation loses its grasp. Whether you are a new Christian or an older believer who wrestles with the past, there is promise of new life! Be open to the grace of Christ revealed in God’s Holy Word.
“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace” (Romans 6:11-14).
A believer may supernaturally experience deliverance at the moment of salvation or even later as he grows in the Lord. It is also true that a believer might not miraculously experience deliverance, but he can mature spiritually enough to realize that deliverance has already happened in the spiritual realm, and that it can become real through faith. Deliverance at any time or in any way is appropriated by faith, but for it to continue, a believer must daily yield his old nature to the Lord.
When Jesus looks at His child, He doesn’t recognize sin, but only sees potential. For you to remain on a straight path you must also see the potential that Christ sees in you. As you seek this potential, you make a daily decision not to succumb to temptation, and to trust in His Word and in His strength. You decide whether to sin or not, but it is Christ’s strength and His strength alone which breaks addiction. You don’t have to cry and beg for His strength to be real. You reach out and seize it. You apply His strength to your temptation by focusing on His Word instead of your weakness. Don’t feel guilty when temptation hits, just don’t give in to its invitation. Sin is not your master. Since you know Jesus and are under His grace, you have the authority to rebuke it!
In 1984 the Lord delivered me from sexual addiction. Satan still attempts to lure me back into my past. However, the grace of Jesus has given me the power through the knowledge of His Word to remain strong. Each time I am attacked I vocally announce to Satan that I will not give any part of my body to unrighteousness. I tell him that in Christ I have found righteousness. The law may have exposed the evil of my sin, but the grace of Christ has set me free from its terrorizing oppression.
The apostle Paul writes to the Romans. “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does” (Romans 7:14-20). Paul recognizes the battle that rages between his new and old nature, and understands that his human desire alone to be good is not enough.
The conflict between good and evil is fought on the battlefield of the mind.
He continues in the next chapter of Romans. “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so” (Romans 8: 6-7). A sinful mind is incapable of submission because it is antagonistic towards God. A carnal mind focuses on sin, and even if it wished deliverance from sin, it cannot supply or apply the strength that is needed to fight. The conflict between good and evil is fought on the battlefield of the mind. A mind controlled by the Holy Spirit has the strength to win the battle. With each battle you win in your mind, peace is the result. “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3).
When Christ lives in you, your body should be free from sin! God the father who raised Jesus from the dead, gives you power over your mortal body’s desires. When the battle is won within your mind, self-control is attained. Because the Holy Spirit controls your mind, each member of your body is brought under the righteous control of the Holy Spirit. The body, which once controlled you, is now controlled by the living presence of a Holy God (Romans 8:10-11).
If you have anticipated what my actual sin might have been, you will be disappointed. Not only that, you would have read this article for the wrong reason. This journey has been about freedom, not the past and bondage. Whoever the Son sets free is free indeed (John 8:36). I am no longer that person! But I am no longer that person only because of the grace of Jesus Christ!
As I prayed that evening, the Holy Spirit blessed me with His presence, and as I experienced the greatest of joy, my prayer became praise! The desire to sin that had plagued me through life first as a non-Christian and then later as a Christian, suddenly ended! Since that night, so many years ago now, His grace has daily defeated the enemy’s attempt to destroy me.
How do you break sin’s endless cycle? The power is found though God’s Word, and it shall prevail through your hardest battle. Grow in knowledge of His truth. Discover His grace for your life and daily apply His strength to succeed. Desire purity and love God above anything or anyone else. Each day should be a journey into the very heart of God, and a prayerful decision in lifestyle choices that will keep you in His miracle.
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