Recently, I shared a blog post on how to endure temptation. I believe it offers solid wisdom that can help you in your day-to-day battles. But we also need to know what to do when we do give in to temptation and sin because we will all have times when we fall.
When you have the gospel in your life and you are following Jesus, you find out quickly that coming to know Christ does not eliminate sin in your life. We don’t stop wrestling with it. Being born again does not deliver us from the presence of sin. Thankfully, though, it does deliver us from the power of sin.
Because of Christ, we have access to the power we need to turn from sin. A lot of Christians try to approach sin with the attitude of, “Well, I'll just stop because I'm not supposed to do that.” This sounds reasonable, but telling ourselves we aren’t supposed to do something anymore is not a real strategy. When we do sin, we can find ourselves feeling overwhelmed with guilt and without a way to steer clear of it.
This is why we need an actual plan.
Think about it, if you have termites in your home, you call an exterminator because he knows what to do. If your child contracts head lice at school, you talk to somebody who knows which special shampoo you need to use. If you have cancer in your body, you want to go to the best oncologist possible, and if chemo is an effective treatment, you want to use the best chemotherapy available to kill the cancer.
What is the plan for turning from sin? It is repentance. As a matter of fact, the root meaning of repentance is “to turn.”
Here are the Six Steps of Repentance:
1 - Comprehension - We have to understand that God takes sin seriously.
We cannot treat sin lightly like the world does. We cannot glory in it or shrug it off. “Oh, it’s just a little bit of jealousy, a little bit of lust, a little bit of letting your eyes wander, a little bit of covetousness, a little bit of gossip, a little bit of lying.” Any of these sins count as rebellion against God.
This is why we must saturate ourselves in the Word of God. Scripture helps us better understand who God is and what He wants of us. It helps us identify any sin lurking in our hearts or blatantly parading around in our lives. I often tell the men I disciple that there is a direct correlation between my time with the Lord in the morning and my time confessing sin in the evening. When one is up, the other is down.
A simple prayer we can pray is, “Heavenly Father, build within me a sensitivity to see and sniff out anything in my life that displeases You.”
2 - Conviction - The Holy Spirit’s job is to convict us when we sin.
When we sin, no matter how ugly or how subtle it might be, the Holy Spirit's role is to quickly let us know that what we are doing does not honor the Lord.
While I have never heard the Lord’s audible voice, there have been times when I have sinned and sensed Him impressing on my spirit, "That is not who you are anymore. Your behavior doesn't match who I've declared you to be in My Son.”
No matter how uncomfortable this may be, we never want to lose our sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s conviction. We never want to reach a place where we quench the Spirit and grow cynical or hard-hearted toward His work in our lives. I don’t want to know who I would be or where I would be if not for Him stopping me in my tracks and helping me turn around.
3 - Confession - When convicted of sin, we must confess it to the Lord and be willing to turn from it (See 1 John 1:9).
Why confess your sin when He already knows what you have done? God is not interested in you letting Him know what you have done wrong. Confession is about you letting Him know that you know you have sinned. You have comprehended the fact you sinned, you have felt convicted over your sin, and now you are ready to openly confess that sin.
1 John 1:9 tells us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But we need to be specific. We should fully acknowledge our sinful thoughts and actions.
Next? We need countermeasures.
4 - Countermeasures - We must take proactive steps not to commit that sin again.
We can reduce repentance to simply running from sinful things, but that is not an accurate definition. “Repent” is a military term to describe a group of soldiers marching in one direction and then turning to march in a new direction. Notice it’s not just turning around. There has to be purposeful forward movement in a different direction.
If we see a pattern of sin in our lives attached to certain relationships, environments, settings, or circumstances, we must proactively move away from those things. We must put up parameters in our lives that better position us not to struggle with the same old sins.
The next step equips us to set up these countermeasures.
5 - Biblical Counseling - We need to reach out to others to help us turn from sin.
I have had the privilege of being a pastor for many years. Some might think this means I don’t need any help when it comes to dealing with sin. But I meet regularly with an accountability partner, and we ask each other hard questions. I just don't do well without that accountability. Sometimes the reminder I need to stay faithful is simply knowing he will ask me those hard questions and not wanting to have to tell him I failed. And when I do fail? I tell him so he can pray for me and ask me even harder questions.
We cannot do this on our own. We need people who will speak hard truth into our lives, help us figure out where to set up countermeasures, hold us accountable, and pray for us.
6 - Comprehending God’s Grace - We must refuse to wallow in sin as we choose to believe we are who God says we are.
All of this ends much like it began—with comprehension. Remember, step one was comprehending our sin. Now, step six is comprehending God's grace.
When we repent and turn from our sin, God does not want us to wallow in guilt and shame. That's what the enemy would love for us to do. He knows when we stay stuck in a place of shame, we are more likely to keep repeating those same old cycles of sin. But God wants us to know and believe a verse I’ve already mentioned, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Perhaps you have already confessed, turned, and repented, but you have never forgiven yourself. I want to encourage you to go the full journey of repentance. Choose to believe what God says about you instead of what the enemy would have you believe.
You can be a Christian whose life looks different, not because you don't ever struggle with sin, but because the presence of repentance and turning is a constant part of your life with Jesus.