Breaking the Cycle of Sin

If you are anything like me or anything like everybody else, you probably find yourself struggling
with the same sins, over and over again.

Whether it's the same sin or just sin in general it is very discouraging to see yourself doing the same thing every day, every week...

The key to winning the struggle against sin, especially repeated or habitual sin is to remember that it isn't the sin itself that holds your heart captive so much as the fear and discouragement that the sin causes in your heart.

The cold hard truth is that you will probably keep sinning until the day you die.  This doesn't have to be, but is a great probability.

The secret then to freeing your heart is to stop measuring your success and victories based on how often you sin.  Instead, start counting your victories by how quickly you get back up after you fall.

If you judge yourself based on your loss, you will start to create a self-pitying cycle.  Instead of fighting back you will begin to define yourself by your sin and create a bubble of hopelessness.

Man up and stop the self-pitying!

Fine, maybe it's not all your fault and maybe you were just having a rough day.  But someone is going to have to take responsibility.

That's you.

The way to break this cycle is to get up immediately after you fall.  Don't wait until the next day or the next minute.  You don't even have to wait until you are finished committing the sin before you start to repent.

Discouragement is the devil's greatest weapon.  But when we count our victory in recovery over loss instead of counting the losses, we take the edge off discouragement and cultivate a sense of hope.

As long as we are going to keep sinning, we might as well get good at picking up the pieces.

I am not in any way suggesting that we should stop fighting.  What I am suggesting is a way to regain the strength to keep fighting. 

There is no point in fighting without hope.  But the man who has hope has not only a reason to fight, but also a way to fight.

We fight with hope, we fight with God, we fight with our brothers.  We fight by getting back up like men, accepting the blame, and beginning again.