Episode #249 Break Free: Why You Can’t Stop Sinning Just By Willpower – Unforced Rhythms of Grace

Hey friends, it's Jen. Have you ever wished that you could just stop sinning? Maybe it's in general or maybe there's a specific area that just keeps tripping you up. If only you could figure out how to stop sinning in this way, then you would be able to live in the fullness of life that God offered you.

Well, today we're talking about that. And I think it's a common frustration a lot of us have because we misunderstand sin.

This is something that Richard Foster talks about in his book, Celebration of Discipline. And he says that “we are accustomed to thinking of sin as individual acts of disobedience to God.”

As I reflected on this statement, I realized that that was true for me.

This action was good because it was not sinful.
That act was disobedient towards God, and that was sin.
But that's a limited view of sin, as he goes on to say, “that is true enough as far as it goes, but scripture goes much further.”

In Romans, the Apostle Paul frequently refers to sin as a condition that plagues the human race. And this plague is ingrained in our habits. It's not a one-time action that occurs, but it's a perpetual symptom of something that has actually enslaved us.

We see this terminology repeated throughout scripture. For example, in John 8:24, Jesus is speaking, and he says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.”

These are ingrained habits, and as Richard Foster goes on to say, our ordinary method of dealing with ingrained sin is to launch a frontal attack.

We rely on willpower and determination.

Whatever might be the issue for us, anger, fear, bitterness, gluttony, pride, lust, substance abuse. We decide, I'm never gonna do it again. We pray against it.

We fight against it. We set our will against it. But the struggle is all in vain and we find ourselves once again morally bankrupt or worse, so proud of our external righteousness.

And I have been there. In my own willpower I either feel successful that I was able to overcome that issue, or I feel bankrupt because I couldn't overcome it by my own determination.

But we can't free or purify our hearts by our own free will. For many of us, that's why the cycle keeps repeating.
And I'll continue paraphrasing here from Richard Foster. He says that the will has the same deficiency as the law. It only deals with the externals, not with what's going on inside our hearts and our spirits. It's incapable of bringing about the transformation that we need.

And so the wonderful realization that we can all walk in today is that inner righteousness is a gift from God. It's not achieved, it's not accomplished by our own determination or willpower. The needed change within us is God's work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job and only God can work from the inside. We cannot attain or earn this righteousness. It's a grace that is given.

In fact, Richard says the Apostle Paul goes through really great lengths to show us that righteousness is a gift given from God. He uses the term 35 times just in the book of Romans to insist that righteousness is unattained and unattainable through human effort.

And I'll read one of those verses for us. It's Romans 5:17 in the NLT.

For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17 NLT)

As we also see in John 8:36,
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)

The freedom that we need and we desperately long for is something we can receive more of from God. And we'll talk more about our part to play in the very next episode, but I missed this for a really long time.

I especially missed this in my times of studying and reading the Bible, because I thought that God wanted me to read so that I could know where to apply my willpower. So that I could grow in my understanding and determination not to fall into areas of sin again. But that only brought more burdens and more try hard, fail harder experiences.

And what I got to grow in instead was learning how to partner with God to receive what he offered me. How to partner with him as he did the transforming work in my life. And so I have a resource that I'm going to share with you and there's a link in the show notes here:

https://thejenweaver.com/captivated-playbook

It's called the Captivated Playbook, talking about how to read the Bible with God.

And so I'm excited to share that with you. And I also want you to take this conversation to God to see what else he wants to talk with you about specifically.

And so here's a question you can take to him:

God, where have I depended too much on my own effort and willpower—and what now? What do you offer me instead?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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