SHARE         How to Win the War Against Sin   If you are not a sinner, you can skip reading this post… For the rest of us, including me, it doesn’t matter what types of sinful things we’ve faced in our lives... we can be free of them! When we earnestly desire to leave behind the things that we have become enslaved to… the pain, the guilt, the shame, the adultery, the misuse of prescription drugs, the pornography, the alcohol abuse, the raging… we can begin a journey to a place of real freedom. Even though we might start out in a place of bondage to such things, we can become closer to healing every day that we depend on God for our direction and strength. The first step we must take is to admit that there is a problem and begin reaching out for help. Many of us live in silence or denial for years. We will suffer from our own failures or with the failures of another person and denying that the problem is real or believing that somehow, we have the personal power to fix it. This step can be difficult to take because it requires transparency. It forces us to take off our mask and admit who and where we really are and exactly what is keeping us stuck. For some people, part of the problem with Christianity is that it seems to be filled with ideas that seem to be in direct conflict with what the world tells us. God says that in order to live we need to die to self; that in order to be free we need to live under some rules; that real strength comes through weakness and that fear is overcome with faith. The world tells us otherwise. This can be really confusing at first, but is made clear by what Paul writes in the book of 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. (Romans 7:18 NIV) To overcome all of this, we need to admit that we are losing the war against sin to finally win the war against sin. For example, we can only defeat anger in our lives by admitting to ourselves that we struggle with it. This is the place of powerlessness that we need to admit to begin our healing. It is also the very thing that stops the vast majority of people from reaching any place of healing in their lives. Some of us enter into a recovery or healing environment and look for every conceivable reason why we don’t fit in, so we don’t have to face being honest ourselves. If we stay in denial, we can never expect to gain freedom from the things that are destroying us. Before admitting our powerlessness, our best hope is to mask some portion of the pain and continue to hope that somehow things will get better. But that really doesn’t work. One of the best analogies that the Bible gives us to understand this comes to us in the story of the children of Israel… as they leave the slavery of Egypt and their journey through the desert and eventual arrival in the Promised Land. What we see in the story is a nation that had been reduced to slavery by another culture that was set against them. They were moved in the pain of their hellish existence to cry out to God for help. He answered them and the journey of a lifetime began. We see in this historical account a people who go from slaves to warriors, from broken people to an army of God. Just how they get there, and their successes and failures are the very keys to our own walk of faith. This story of the slavery of the children of Israel has its roots in a dysfunctional family situation. It was a blended family in which the father, Jacob, had chosen a favorite son in Joseph. As a result, Joseph was despised by his brothers… so much so that they eventually conspired to murder him. Rueben, one of the brothers, interceded on Joseph’s behalf so the brothers decided that it would be more profitable to sell him into slavery than to kill him. They handed him over to slave traders and he was taken to Egypt. The story progresses through a series of events during which God watched over and blessed Joseph during incredibly difficult times. Because of a gift that God had given him to interpret the future through dreams, Joseph eventually rose to a position of authority where he assisted Pharaoh in preparing for a seven year drought. Because of that drought, Joseph was reunited with his family when they were forced to leave Canaan to look for food in Egypt. When they first saw Joseph again, his brothers were unaware of his real identity. Later, when Joseph did reveal himself to his family, he forgave them and extended an offer to come to a place of safety. They accepted his invitation and joined him in Egypt. The following passage shows why Joseph believed he was sent to Egypt:  “God has sent me here to keep you and your families alive so that you will become a great nation. Yes, it was God who sent me here, not you! And he has made me a counselor to Pharaoh--manager of his entire household and ruler over all Egypt. Hurry, return to my father and tell him, this is what your son Joseph says: God has made me master over all the land of Egypt. Come down to me right away! You will live in the land of Goshen so you can be near me with all your children and grandchildren, your flocks, and herds, and all that you have. I will take care of you there, for there are still five years of famine ahead of us. Otherwise, you and your household will come to utter poverty.” (Genesis 45: 7-11 NLT)  Let’s contrast this passage where Joseph, the voice of Pharaoh and ruler in Egypt, created a place of safety for the children of Israel to a later passage where we see the same children of Israel finally turning to God for help.    Years passed, and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites still groaned beneath their burden of slavery. They cried out for help, and their pleas for deliverance rose up to God. God heard their cries and remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He looked down on the Israelites and felt deep concern for their welfare. (Exodus 2: 23-25 NLT) How do we go from a place of opportunity and peace… to anguish, grief, and slavery in just 5 chapters of this story? This isn’t a hard question to answer if you have been attacked and injured in your life or have lived with a person who struggles with addictions, rage, or other issues. But it’s not always so clear when we are the ones dealing with the consequences of our own isolation, anger, drinking, pornography, binge eating, overwork, or adultery. That’s when we need to recognize the pattern we have fallen into and ask ourselves that most difficult question… How did I get here anyway? So How Did You Get Here? In the story, we see an important clue when Joseph is trying to create a safe place for the children of Israel. It gives us some idea as to what God wants for us in our lives and how we become slaves to those things that can destroy us. It is when Joseph says the following to his brothers… “I will take care of you there, for there are still five years of famine ahead of us. Otherwise you and your household will come to utter poverty.” (Genesis 45:11 NLT)  Do the children of Israel stay till the end of the famine and then return to their home, the land promised to them? No, instead they stay in Egypt and under its rule rather than return to the place that God has established for them. They turn a place of temporary refuge given to them for a time of need into something that they become dependent upon instead of God. In the process they become slaves to the thing that was given to them as a blessing in a time of need. Most of us can relate to ignoring warning signs about a situation. Each and every time the actions of our life don’t measure up to what God wants for us, we are deciding about what other “god” we are going to serve. We either stand up for what God wants for us or we will fall deeper and deeper into a bad situation. The Israelites fell into slavery to the Egyptians. There is no middle ground in this. We need to be people of conviction and know that God has a plan and a promise for us. When we are, we will not stay in a place that will destroy us. When our relationship with God is strong enough, we won’t even set foot in that pit…. Others may try to drag us along with them into such “slavery”, but they won’t succeed. What Are We Fighting? It is imperative when we are facing the pain and turmoil of slavery to something or someone that we understand what the fight is all about. Deliverance did not come for Israel until the reality of their powerlessness came to them. They could not negotiate, work, or beg their way out the situation that they were slaves to. (The Egyptians had taken them captive to build monuments, pyramids, and temples.)  It would take hundreds of years before they cry out for help to God. Some might say it took them that long to overcome the denial of the situation they found themselves in. There is no fun in admitting to be something that you don’t want to be or wish you weren’t, but it is the only way to find true freedom. It is the only way for you to be what God wants you to be… an effective witness to others. We can’t use the talents God has given us to heal ourselves or to help heal others when we are tied up in denial. How can we minister to others who are struggling with these same kinds of issues when we pretend that such things have never been a part of our own lives? Satan would much rather have us believe that someone or something else besides God will show up to set us free, than for us to admit that we are truly slaves to something and ask Him for his help. This is because by asking God for help, we are admitting that we are in a spiritual battle (in which the stakes are eternal) and need the help of someone more far powerful than we are. But Why? We need to remember that the evil one does not waste his time trying to destroy people without purpose and value. When we are attacked, we need to know that the attack itself means that we have gifts and talents that could be used for some greater good. In order to release the talent and power that God has given us, we need to come into a place of honesty and transparency about the things we struggle with. Until then we are held prisoner by it. We give it the power to possess us! The children of Israel, like us, were targets because of the great gifts that God had given them. We cannot witness to the power of our God in our slavery to sin if we do not recognize our condition and His ability to liberate us. Until we do that, we have nothing to share with anyone, and no hope on which we can build any healing. We cannot overcome our enslavement until we admit to being the thing that we no longer want to be. It is a decision that we need to make by ourselves but not alone. If we cry out for help, Jesus will answer us in our time of need. Until Next Time, Jim    Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply, Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

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