How to Resist SinSample

Put sin to death

When Jesus talks about “pulling out your eye, cutting off your hand,” in the context of Matthew 5:29, what He’s saying is that if we want to overcome sin, we must be willing to deal with it radically. 

Our Lord wasn’t teaching us to rip out an eye or cut off a hand literally; there have been some in church history who have practiced that to overcome sexual sin or other sorts of sin, but that is not what Jesus is saying. He says we need to be willing to take radical action against our sin problem because sin is a grave issue. 

First of all, we must be sure that we know Jesus as Lord and Savior. Until we come to know Christ, we are slaves to sin. We can never overcome sin if we haven’t been delivered from its guilt and enslaving control by the power of God found in and through His Son, Jesus Christ. 

Have I been forgiven of all my sins? Am I operating from that foundation as I’m attacking my sin issue? And do I have the Spirit of God, a Helper who goes beyond my ability, within me? Do I have a new nature, so I’m no longer spiritually blind and deaf? Am I in Christ? 

That issue should be settled as “Yes, I have faith in the Son of God. I am a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). I have new abilities found in Him.” Then, we focus on the means God has ordained for His people to mortify (put to death) sin in their lives.

Ephesians 6, which talks about the full armor of God, represents one of the means that God has given us to battle sin. Another way to battle sin is by knowing His word, memorizing it, and being saturated with it. The psalmist says, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You” (Psalm 119:11).

Prayer is another way; in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said to His disciples, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Luke 22:40). That’s an example of how prayer is an instrument God has given us to deal with the sin issues in our lives. 

There are many means that God has given us to battle sin, but perhaps what Jesus wants us to grasp as the most important one is that we care to do the battle; that we understand the seriousness of what is at stake. We don’t take sin lightly because all sin is deserving not just of physical death but everlasting death. That’s how hateful sin is to God. Therefore, it must be hateful to us.