Are you a failure as a Christian?

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 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. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:15-25a)

What is your favorite sin? What harmful or selfish behavior do you find yourself engaging in over and over again? Is it getting drunk? Is it yelling at your kids just because they are noisy? Is it gossiping with a friend about a neighbor? Do you like to spend your money foolishly? Are you in the habit of ignoring what your parents say? What is your favorite sin?

Maybe this sounds kind of strange to you. How can a Christian have a favorite sin? Christians are supposed to hate sins! But I am talking about ‘pet’ sins—sins that you commit over and over again because they make you feel comfortable in a stressful world, just like keeping a pet dog or cat makes you feel comfortable and relaxed. We all have pet sins, ways that we blow off steam when the pressures of life start getting to us.

Paul had pet sins too. Paul was a sinner just like us, and he sinned regularly, habitually. But Paul hated the fact that he sinned. He said, "I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing." Paul not only sinned, but he found himself committing the same sins over and over again. This distressed Paul greatly; he went on to say, "What a wretched man I am!"

Paul was distressed because sin is a big deal. In the Lord’s Prayer, when we ask God to forgive our sins, we say, "Forgive us our trespasses." To trespass is to cross a line that shouldn’t be crossed. There was a time in this country when you could be shot for trespassing on someone’s property. God is our Maker, and He has set lines for us that we should not cross as we live our lives; Jesus summarized these boundaries when He said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:37-40). If we ignore Jesus and step beyond His lines for acceptable behavior, we are subject to God’s sentence of eternal death, just as a trespasser is subject to being shot for crossing the line.

The problem is that no one can keep God’s Law perfectly, not even Christians. ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and…Love your neighbor as yourself.' Who can do this? Who can spend just one entire day, from sun up to sun down, without entertaining one single ungodly thought? Can you live one entire day where you never look with even momentary desire on a man or woman that you are not married to? Can you live one entire day where you never become angry at another person for any reason? Can you live one entire day where you never tell even the smallest of lies? Can you live one entire day without even once envying what another person has?

We cannot live even a single day without trespassing against God, and neither could Paul. As a matter of fact, there are some trespasses, some sins, which we keep coming back to over and over again, because we enjoy them so very much. And this is especially aggravating to us because we are Christians, and we should know better. But even though we’ve been baptized, even though we go to church and read our Bibles, we still sin. We sin over and over again. We are like addicts, every one of us. We know what God expects of us. We want to show respect to God and love to our neighbors. We want to do the right thing, but then temptation comes. An invitation to a night of drinking after a frustrating day at work. The inviting eyes of another woman after a fight with your wife. The raging desire to say something hurtful in response to being criticized. Blowing the checkbook on a shopping spree at the end of a boring, depressing week. Temptation comes, and all too often our commitment to God and our family is swept away by the overwhelming need for something to make us feel good right now!

And then, all too often, the sin is committed. And as soon as the rush of sinful pleasure begins to die away, our conscience comes surging back, and we are slapped in the face by the guilt of what we’ve done. Gone is the momentary pleasure; all that remains is the hurt look of the person we have harmed, the tears of the person we have betrayed, the self-hatred we feel towards ourselves for being so weak and disgusting. And to make matters worse, this is not a one-time event. No, we do this to ourselves and those who love us over and over again, continually breaking the promise we made in our hearts that we would never do that again. No wonder Paul says, "What a wretched man I am!"

This is the life of the Christian. Constant struggle against our sinful inner desires. Repeated failures to live up to God’s holy standards. The harsh reality that we will never be the kind of holy people that we ought to be, not in this life.

But this is only half the story. Being a Christian is not only about our failures to keep God’s Law, it is also about Christ’s love for us, a love that saves us from our repeated failings. When Paul asked, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" he answered his own question by saying, "Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!" God’s loving rescue is extended to us through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus added mortal flesh to His perfect immortal spirit and lived among us 2,000 years ago. Jesus taught about God’s love for mankind, and His desire for us to live perfectly so that we could know perfect love and perfect happiness. But since Jesus knew that we could never live perfect lives, He lived a perfect life in our place. Since we can never please God with our lives, Jesus pleased God for us with His life.

But Jesus did not stop there. Every human being has trespassed against God and invited God’s sentence of death. Jesus did not want anyone to be condemned to eternal death in Hell, so He offered His perfect, godly life in place of ours. Because of our sins, we should have died as criminals, but because of His love for us, the completely innocent Christ died condemned as a criminal instead. And to show His approval on this ultimate act of love, God the Father raised Jesus from death back to life. The Father raised Jesus to show His love for His perfect Son, and also to show us that death no longer need be feared by those who put their hope in Jesus.

Peter wrote, "Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God" (1 Peter 3:18). Christ died for sins, once for all. Think about that. Every sin has been atoned for. No matter how many times your mouth, your eyes or your hands have gotten you into trouble, every sin has been paid for. And there is no limit on how often you can come to Jesus for forgiveness. When Peter asked Jesus, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times" (Matthew 18:21-22). The point Jesus made was that Peter should be generous with forgiveness, because God is generous with forgiveness.

When I was quite a bit younger, there was a phrase teachers used with children who had low self-esteem. Christian educators would tell them, "God don’t make junk." And it’s absolutely true. God made each of you readers individually; David describes God’s role in his birth this way: "you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). But God’s perfect creation is marred by sin, sin that we inherit from our parents and pass on to our children. Adam was made in the image of God, but after Adam sinned, his sons were not born in the image of God--Genesis 5:3 tells us "When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth." Adam corrupted his life with sin and passed that corruption on to all his descendants. Because of this inherited Original Sin, every person born is in need of rescue by Jesus Christ. But even when Jesus leads us to put our hope and trust in Him, the Original Sin hangs on, constantly at war with the good that Jesus wants us to do. Every Christian was made by God to do good works, but every Christian struggles through life fighting against his natural desire to sin, to trespass God’s loving boundaries for us.

Living life resisting temptations can seem like a hopeless battle. Indeed, Paul says, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). But it is a mistake to think of resisting sin as a battle that we must win. The battle to live free from sin is the battle that Jesus came to fight, and it is the battle that He has already won! When Jesus died on the cross, He canceled our reservations in hell. When Jesus rose alive into heaven, He began to prepare a place for us to join Him, where sin can never tempt us or hurt us again. Joining Jesus has nothing to do with our failures in life. Joining Jesus in Heaven rests on one thing only; Jesus said, "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son" (John 3:17-18).

You are frustrated by your repeated sinning, just as Paul was frustrated by his repeated sinning. But Paul knew that so long as he put his faith in Jesus’ promise of rescue from sin, his sins could not keep him from his Savior’s side. This is true for you as well. No matter how much you mess up at being a Christian, Jesus loves you, Jesus is willing to forgive you, and Jesus promises eternal release from the burden of sin to all those who trust in Him until the end. Ask Jesus for forgiveness and thank Him for the miracle of His undeserved mercy, which He is willing to show you anew every day.