Why Do I Still Struggle with Sin? 

The same happened to me. After the change in mindset, made possible by the Holy Spirit and, quite frankly, wearing myself down, I finally felt the love of God like never before. It was true freedom.

A very powerful truth, my daily goals are to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ amen in Jesus name. Chad have a wonderful evening.

Albert I'm going out on a limb here but I'm guessing the "certain sins" you refer to are 'porn' related? From experience let me tell you that only you can change that - IF you are struggling with pornography, the only remedy is to just stop watching it! "Cold turkey" is the only way out of it my friend. Abstain and flee from it long enough to allow your brain to heal and to be free from the grip of the dopamine addiction associated with it. It's a vicious cycle but it will break if you want it to. Cold Turkey is the only way (and cleanse your mind with God's word, prayer and fellowship with others in a small accountability group of brothers)

I get the essence of what bunyan is saying , but I'd like to put it this way , For God to chastise us for the sins he as already and fully punished in christ makes no sense , God cannot judge the same sin twice ( once on christ and once in us ) . So whatever our struggles and sufferings are , it's not at all due to our sins ( for it is already forgiven ) , but Elizabeth elliot once said " God will not save you from anything that will make you more like christ " . I think that sums up our whole Christian life .

@@oscarflorian4147 quote scripture not some lady

You reap what you sow! God is not mocked. Sow to the flesh reap corruption sow to the spirit reap eternal life

I need to hear it every day 😁

You don’t have to. Christ fought it for you already and won. Any trial subsequent to your salvation is an invitation into the person of Christ walk in your true identity of a son. You might be tempted but it’s for growth in Him. It’s unto something and that something is becoming more and more like Jesus. It’s that carrying of your own cross. You’ve got this!

That is your old identity not your current one in Christ. “Your faith has made you well” again. Gal 2:20 says it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. You’re alive in Him to the measure at which you’re dead in Him. Daily sanctification means that things are dying daily and you’re growing in your maturity in being His Royal priestess. That scripture that you used is out of context for your situation. King David was repenting for the sin of murder and adultery amongst many others he committed against Uriah and Bathsheba. We know this because he asks that “the joy of your salvation” be restored to him. God does so. David said purge me with Hyssop. Hyssop is your faith applied by the blood in Christ. You have been baptized into newness of life. (Rom 6). You are no longer that person that has to perpetually tend the grave of your old self. Do you have to acknowledge that you are dust and that you need what Christ accomplished? Yes! Daily! Do you have to live a lifestyle of daily repentance and daily sanctification? Yes! A lifestyle of abiding and fasting? Yes! But these are beautiful things not works. They are the lifestyle we get to live in Him and He delights in renewing us daily. Our minds, our actions begin to look more and more like Him. It’s what Paul meant when he said “you ought to be teachers by now”. They still hadn’t learned growth. God will grow you through testing, trials, purification, so that you can grow and sustain your walk in Him by His strength. Remember it’s not by our deeds but by His strength. The parable of the seeds that were sown is a good example that Christ gave about our co-laboring role and invitation into Him. Be blessed and remember that though we sin we don’t have to wallow in the identity of the old man. You’re a new creation and you’re empowered to walk in the identity of daughter of the King. He’s places on you His Royal robes and places His Royal ring on your finger. He celebrates your return to Him and your faithfulness by pruning you. John 15. You just keep abiding and sitting at His feet like Mary. Jesus told Martha, “only one thing is needed and your sister has chosen the better thing”. Be blessed in Jesus’ name.

I don’t think sin is an addiction. I’m not addicted to sinning anymore. I once was but after Christ that became impossible. If after Christ sin we’re still an addiction that would mean He died for nothing. But instead He defeated sin and death on the cross. You don’t have to tend the grave of the old man. Do I sin? Yes but I do not have a lifestyle of sinning. I have a lifestyle of identity in Christ by which He prunes me because of abiding (John 15). That word prune in John 15 is “to cleanse of sin”. So He actually rewards our abiding by pruning us. That pruning is part of my daily sanctification. That Romans 7 scripture is so true but we forget that Paul was teaching about that truth in the context of his trying to “work” his way through that circumstance. In chapter 8 is where we see what Paul was teaching about chapter 7. He calls it “walking according to the spirit”. He realized that the law was in full operation in his mind over his circumstance. Once he applied the new covenant he realized that his success as a follower of Christ did not rest on his ability to make himself righteous but on the finished work of the cross, so he learned to apply his faith by the blood. Hope this helps.

@@irod1971 "it's an addiction and only through Christ can we overcome" that once sentence summizes your entire post.

Don’t believe that lie. One of the enemies goals is to build so much guilt and shame around you- that you become blinded to the power of the Cross. Christ defeated all sin and death FOR YOU! Submit to him. Open your Bible. He graciously and lovingly wants to meet you there in your daily repentance and submission to Him. He loves you. He will never leave his sheep. He died for you. Grace to you.

My sheep hear my voice and I lead them, turn to Yeshua and break all ties with sin. It is a deadly poison and you have felt its bite. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that sin is ok. Sin separates us from our God plain and simple, turn from sin to God through Jesus and make no place for the devil. If these preachers told the truth there would be nobody in their churches. Don’t believe the lies. Peter warned of the false teachers among us, Jesus Himself said they will proclaim Him God but teach falsely in His name, Matthew 7, Matthew 24 etc.

Even before Christ, back in the Old Testament Leviticus days, in the Law, God provided a means of daily cleansing. It was when a person was made aware of their sin, they were unclean, but only until the evening, when they were to go and wash their clothes and body in the river, and return to camp, clean and enjoy fellowship again. This still holds true, minus the river. John tells us that, if we confess our sins, He is faithful to cleanse us. This is how we wash ourselves, by submerging and bathing in the never-ending river of His grace. As hard as it may seem, your guilt is an indication of your position. Truly unsaved people don't care at all about their level of sinfulness. They love and enjoy it, and are proud in it. Romans tells us that they cannot understand the things of God. They don't struggle with their sinfulness at all. So, if you struggle, if you fail, and are concerned at all about your place before God, then take notice, because that's evidence you're fine. However, you need to turn your focus away from yourself, and put it on Him. When a kid gets in trouble and does wrong, do they cease to be their fathers son/daughter? No. The same is true for us. We're children of His, no matter what. That's our position in Christ. REST in His FINISHED work, which He fulfilled the Law in doing for you. You can rest in Him, because His perfectly lived life replaces your sin-riddled one, and His resurrecting seals the deal on its eternal application. God lived a perfect life as a human in your place and died on a cross to pay in full the debt you owed. Then, He resurrected Himself, and now reigns in human form at the right hand of the Father. Do you think He'll forget all the work He did to forgive you? Never. Plus, you CAN'T sin yourself unsaved, because Romans 11:29 tells us His gifts and call are irrevocable. John tells us no one can snatch us out of His hand, and John also says of all the Father gives Him, He will lose none. Not one single drop of the blood He shed will be in vain. You're secured, because God died in your place, and it is He who reigns, alive, still to this day. REST in His finished work! It is finished! Don't feel dirty, because you're clean! Open the Bible and wrap yourself in it like a warm blanket on a cold night. You're His kid, no longer His enemy. Be it. Act it. Live it. The truth shall set you free, and the truth is He died for you two thousand years ago, before any of your sins. He died knowing all about your sins. That was already accounted for. They're dealt with in the past. He did this to set you free. Be free.

​@@justhebigideaGood word!

Well said

We agree on much. Here is an area, however, where it seems there is a missing component: we are not only tempted by the devil but by ourselves, by the sinful nature within us. The devil may flee from us but we cannot flee from ourselves. We are stuck in an ongoing inner civil war. No, that does not meant every waking second is a full blown battle, but it does mean that we live, every waking moment with an enemy lurking within us that looks just like the man in the mirror.

@@chadbird1517 We have a little bit different of a view in this area and so I’d love to challenge you in the oil of unity. I’d love to hear a teaching on Psalm 133 if you haven’t already by the way. In scripture I see and believe who God says I am in Him. He says “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” Gal 2:20. It also says, ”Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin” Romans‬ ‭6‬:‭4‬-‭7‬ ‭NKJV‬‬. The old man has been done away with. The issue I think is my sinful nature wanting to resurrect itself daily which is a blessing. I wasn’t meant to tend a grave. I am alive in Him to the measure at which I am dead in Him. He is all in all and I can’t do ANYTHING apart from Him (John 15:5). However there is a process of daily sanctification that I’ve been invited and commanded into with Him for my own growth and maturity. I’ve been called into a co-laboring role where in this role I get to choose Him over temptation or any other sin daily. I get to exercise growth. I get to “work out my salvation with fear and trembling”. I am a “new creation”. I am no longer the man I used to be. My job is to believe that I have been crucified with Christ and as a priest in His temple, the temple of my body, it is my job to be a living sacrifice. He falls on the sacrifice but it’s the priests job to keep it burning and as a royal priesthood I’m empowered to do this because my hope is in Him. ”This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.“ ‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭6‬:‭19‬-‭20‬ ‭NKJV‬‬. Every circumstance whether it be temptation, loss, promotion, strife, pain, sorrow, whatever, is an invitation into the person of Christ to have an encounter with Him unlike ever before, and in Him I can have beautiful exchanges such as “beauty for ashes”. Isaiah 61 is my portion because of Christ. Anyhow Chad. I truly love your content and appreciate the gift on your life and how you’ve yielded your life to Him to be a blessing to others. Truly love the image of God on your life. It is a gift to learn about the Lord through the vessel that you are in Him. I honor your surrender and how through you we get to see a part of His nature that had you not yielded, it would never have been seen by the world. You are seen by the Lord and He holds your circumcised heart in His pierced hands. Be blessed always brother. ‭‭

I thought you were born again?

What do you mean, “Be careful with Paul?” The problem is not with Paul, but with those who misinterpret or even malign his writings. I am not saying that is you. But there are plenty out there who want to denigrate his apostolic authority. It is those people whom we should be careful about.

We should note up front that you, in fact, DO the same sins over and over. So do I. You have thoughts and desires of greed, lust, spite, pride, etc. These are internal, yes, but just as sinful as committing adultery or murdering. So, in fact, you do "the same sins over and over again." Should you and I worry about these sins? I would not use that word. We should be contrite over them, confess them, and pray that God would "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil." What I never worry about is whether God will forgive me for the sake of Christ. Of course he will for he is a God merciful and gracious, who removes our sins as far as the east is from the west. As far as the interpretation of Romans 7, Paul uses verbs in the present tense. And there is nothing idiosyncratic about his speech, as if this is just Paul's struggle. You cannot get more universally applicable to every Christian than Romans 7.

You obviously have not been around true Christians a lot.

But why do we choose it? "For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness." Mark 7:21

@@joshuaschmidt6331 Just think about Adam and Eve BEFORE THEY sinned in the Garden. They did not have any sinful nature in them and yet THEY sinned!! They did not have any history of sinful thinking or sinful behaviour ! THEy just start listening to the voice of the enemy, the moment they start believing it and doubting God's honesty they felt drawn to act - THEY CHOSE TO SIN!!! So it is about whom you believe and what you choose to do ! AND if we still have sin in us, Jesus's sacrifice was not complete? So what did Jesus accomplish on the cross for us??? He just added to us righteousness and not have dealt with sin? Is sin still our problem??? I believe in the absolute sacrifice of Jesus that DESTROYED MY SIN. If sin lives somewhere in the body, does it it mean we can do something about it? Let's do a surgery ))))) and get rid of it))))... and I love Paul's words about the fact that our bodies are HIS temple))) Anything that is His can not contain in itself any darkness) Anyway , there have been 2 points of view in Christianity on that but I know which one makes Jesus absolute Winner and me more than a conqueror and which one the enemy LOVES))) sorry .

You’re absolutely correct on your understanding of scripture. The sins that had me in chains are not what I struggle with today. Those are dead but like you said there are habitual things that the enemy will use to try and cause you to fall and in those places especially, you’re invited into the renewing of the mind of Christ. He uses all of it for growth in Him. Repentance is a lifestyle not a one time event. Prayer and fasting is a lifestyle not something you do at the beginning of the year only. We can do all He commanded us to do because in the lifestyle of prayer and fasting you learn what it means to abide in him. It’s what Mary of Bethany knew how to do so well. Be encouraged because you have the correct understanding of what Paul was teaching.

Do you know any real Christians? If you did you would know exactly what Chad and Paul is talking about.