Both of your authors know what it is like to be ill. I (Bill) have been diagnosed with a progressive lung disease, while I (Henry) have suffered from Parkinson’s disease for years. For each of us, it was crucial to get an accurate diagnosis in order to begin the appropriate form of treatment for our ailment.
Equally, we both know what it is like to suffer from sin sickness—a more serious matter. And we know how important it is to get an accurate diagnosis for this kind of sickness as well. Sometimes the symptoms can be misleading. When it comes to sin, we often have to keep probing beyond the obvious explanation, because it may turn out that we have multiple cases of habitual sin at one time.
If you are reading this book, chances are that you have one particular sin in mind that you want to deal with. Maybe you have a problem with lust. Or maybe it is anger. Or perhaps it is a critical spirit. Typically, a person focuses on the one sin to which he or she has become most sensitized.
Before you start trying to treat your troublesome sin, do a careful self-diagnosis. Consider whether there may be other sins in your life that you are overlooking or downplaying. Ask God to show you all that is wrong with your behavior. While we may have one dominant sin, rarely if ever do we have just one sin acting in our life at a time. We have many.
You may be worried about your tendency to be envious. But if you think about it, you may realize that you also have problems with vanity and flattery.
Or you may feel guilty over your tendency to take things that do not belong to you. Keeping company with the sin of thievery, though, may be laziness, greed, and complaining.
Sins like these interact and feed on each other. Without Divine healing, one symptom may improve and others will likely grow more grave.
We cannot afford to take a simplistic view of our sin problem. “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Only God knows. With His help, we can keep testing and examining our lives to expose ever more thoroughly the wickedness that is lodged there.
The Bible as a Mirror
The sins in our lives are not like the stars in a constellation, with the number never varying and their positions remaining fixed. Instead, our sins are more like a flock of birds on a fence rail, with some birds joining their fellows, others flapping away, and the whole flock milling about. In other words, sins may disappear from our lives and then reappear, perhaps joined by others, recombining in a somewhat different form every time. There is, in fact, an infinite number of formations that sin may assume.
Because our sin diagnosis keeps changing, we need to constantly remain on the alert. First we need to be alert to what we are doing and thinking. Then we need to be alert to how our actions and thoughts line up with the Bible’s teaching.
We glance at ourselves in a mirror several times a day to see how we are looking. In the same way, Scripture is like a mirror that shows us who we really are. And we need to keep turning back to it to remind ourselves of how human beings are capable of going wrong.
The laws and commands of Scripture tell us what kinds of behaviors make God frown. The stories contained in Scripture show us the ways that real (that is, sinful) people like us have interacted with a holy God. In other words, both the Bible’s “prescriptions” and its “descriptions” help us understand our condition better.
Not only do we need to listen to what Scripture tells us; we also have to obey it. That was the apostle James’s point:
If you just listen and don’t obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you keep looking steadily into God’s perfect law—the law that sets you free—and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. —James 1:23-25
The broad diversity of human sin appears in Scripture. These include sins of action, thought, and feeling. They also include sins of commission and sins of omission—that is, doing things that we should not and not doing things that we should do. “Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it” (James 4:17).
Identifying all our sins in a biblical way, then, is a prerequisite to successful healing of the soul. We have to know what sins to go after in our lives if we want to defeat them. What symptoms of a sin-sick soul have cropped up in your spiritual system?
One tool that may help you identify your sins is reflection on your own personality and how that predisposes you more to some sins than to others.
The Personality of Sin
Have you ever wondered why you are more vulnerable to certain types of temptation than to others? Have you ever wondered why your sin diagnosis looks different from that of a friend or a family member? Why does your problem happen to be with this sin and not that?
Each of us has a unique personality, and our personality type predisposes us more to certain kinds of sin than to other kinds. By understanding our personality type, then, we can better predict what kinds of temptation might most easily waylay us. We all are born with a sin nature, but the way in which our innate sinfulness is manifested will vary based upon at least three areas affecting our personality.
The first factor is our family environment—what kind of home we grew up in. For example, a woman who received little love from her father when she was a girl might be more susceptible to the seductions of men. A man who was frequently criticized and made fun of by his parents in youth might be cruel to others in turn.
It may seem that our childhood was a long time ago. But because childhood experiences happen at a formative time in our lives, they can exert an influence on us for the rest of our lives, whether for good or for ill. They help to determine our sin diagnosis.
A second factor helping to determine our particular tendencies to sin is our individual temperament. Someone who is an introvert, for instance, might gravitate toward a particular group of sins, while a strong extrovert might struggle more with others.
Are you a highly visual person? If so, you might have more of a problem with pornography than someone else does. Are you pessimistic? If you are, then maybe you have a problem with worry. The many factors of temperament can influence how our sin nature expresses itself.
A third factor that affects our sin diagnosis is the impact of external events. A boy who is sexually molested by a man may have greater trouble with homosexual temptations as an adult. Someone who undergoes a trauma may struggle with fear in later years. In ways such as these, our experiences sometimes make us more liable to certain sins.
You have been through a unique series of experiences in the course of your years, and they have contributed to making you who you are. How have these experiences affected your spiritual health? External events build on the foundation of family environment and temperament to set the pattern for sin susceptibility.
“Know thyself” is an ancient maxim of philosophy. It is good advice in many areas of life, not least in applying the soul prescription to your sin problem. Take some time to ask God for insight into yourself, to think through your personality history, and to get the opinions of those who know you best so that you can use your personality as a clue to your sin diagnosis.
As we continue in our investigation of sin sickness, we will learn that if we do not deal with our sins early on in their development, they have a way of gathering more sins and worse sins. They snowball. Or maybe it is more like an avalanche!
The Problem with “Little” Sins
One day, back when I (Henry) was doing prison ministry, I found myself in a jail sitting across the table from a confessed murderer. This young man had killed his own mother. What an unimaginable crime! I thought. To kill the woman who bore you, the woman who loved you and raised you. How could such a thing be? As he told me his story, though, I realized that his sin had not begun with the enormity of murder; it had begun much smaller than that.
As a youth, this young man had begun to rebel against his mother, not wanting to follow the rules she laid down. This was nothing unusual for a teen, but in his case it was more than a youthful phase. He became bitter and began to hate the sight of his mother. He stole money from her purse. He argued with her and even struck her with his fists. Then it turned really serious. In the midst of a heated exchange of recriminations, he reached for a gun and shot her.
Do you see the accumulation and the escalation of sin in this man’s life? From rebellion to bitterness to hatred to stealing to arguing to fighting to murder. That is the sort of pattern we see repeated over and over in people’s lives. For instance, we see such a pattern in the life of King David.
When we think of David and sin, our minds often jump immediately to Bathsheba. But perhaps David’s first sin in that period of his life was irresponsibility, as he chose not to go to war with his troops. Then he entertained lust as he ogled the bathing Bathsheba. This led swiftly to adultery when he had sex with the neighbor woman. Then he practiced deception in trying to get Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, to sleep with her so as to account for her pregnancy. Finally, he arranged for Uriah’s murder. (See 2 Samuel 11:1-15 for the whole story.)
That’s how little sins grow into big ones. For David, the sequence of events led to a dramatic change for the worse in his fortunes. His family life and kingship were never the same again.
Many of us are like David, thinking we can safely dabble in little sins. That is foolish thinking! For one thing, what we consider “little” may not be so little to God. In the Sermon on the Mount, for example, Jesus seemed to suggest that anger can be the moral equivalent of murder, and lust can be the moral equivalent of adultery.
You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment!…
You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. —Matthew 5:21–22, 27–28
Sin is sin. It is always serious. It always erects a barrier between us and God. Any sin can become a beachhead for others, affecting not only ourselves but also others in a myriad of harmful ways. The ripples of sin spread and grow.
Dabbling soon becomes outright indulgence. Invariably, if a Christian has seemed to take a sudden fall into sin, a closer inspection will show that the person had for some time been flirting with sin before openly courting it. Adultery may trace back to pornography and sexual fantasy. Fist-fighting may have come from lying and name-calling.
One time I (Henry) was talking to a woman friend of mine about a time when she was playing golf with a female friend. The women were moving through the course rather slowly, so the two men coming up behind them asked to play through. The women agreed. It was the polite thing to do.
As the men played the hole, they chatted with the women pleasantly. Then they suggested making their game a foursome. This seemed innocent enough—and maybe the golfing would be more fun this way. The women agreed to the proposition.
Later, after playing the eighteenth hole, the men asked the women to have a drink with them at the clubhouse. Suddenly the situation was not looking so innocent; it was looking more like a date. All four people were married, none of them to each other. My friend wisely said no. What might it have led to if she had agreed to the date?
“That was the day I realized how easy it is to get yourself into trouble,” my friend commented.
If you want to keep your sins from multiplying like cancer cells and growing like monsters in a nightmare, you need to act soon and act decisively. The earlier in the process of sin growth you act, the easier spiritual healing will be. However well developed the sin in your life has become, whether your sins are “small” or “large,” it is best to act today rather than tomorrow. Never forget the way that sins have of getting worse and more numerous.
Since we never get past the danger of temptation, we never get past the need for vigilance and prevention of those sins to which we are prone.
Becoming a Recovering Sinner
Trying to live a holy life is a complex proposition. It is not as simple as deciding to obey a few rules and then doing it.
It has been said that life is like swimming in a dirty swimming pool. We pick up filth that has been deposited in the pool by others, and we add our own filth to the mix. Keeping clean in such an environment is no easy task. There is plenty of blame to go around.
While temptation may change its aspect or approach us from a different angle, it never goes away. It is like driving a car. Whenever you drive a car, you are continually subjecting yourself to the risk of an accident. In the same way, just by going through life, you are continually subject to temptation.
Bathsheba was plainly visible from David’s rooftop while she was taking her bath. She must have known this. Could it be that she was hoping for attention from the king? Maybe, maybe not. But if so, it is an example of how we have to deal with temptation from others.
Every day, we are an invitation for temptation. The temptations we give in to reveal our peculiar weaknesses. Then they produce the sin symptoms that comprise our particular diagnosis at a particular time.
It would be easier to resist temptation if sin were not so attractive. With most sins, we are not talking about something that seems awful; we are talking about something that could potentially feel wonderful. Many times, to do the wrong thing is more agreeable than to do the right thing. So even though we know that the right thing is best for us in the long run, we choose the fleeting pleasures of sin anyway. It is only when we realize the true destructiveness of sin that we are willing to seek change.
A complete cure for sin will come only at our glorification after death. In this life we will never stop struggling with sin—we will never entirely settle the matter.
Yet there is cause for hope. Salvation opens the doors to God’s resources, and so the Spirit can substantially defeat sin for us in this life as we obey God’s commands.
Remember this: we can get to a point where we never again repeat a sin that was once a regular habit for us. It really is possible to win over a sin. We may never be free from the temptation again, and we likely will fail God again in another way later on. But as we deal with our sins one after another, we can experience victories over each of them and over time raise our level of holiness.
Alcoholics who have not taken a drink for a long time call themselves “recovering alcoholics,” not “recovered alcoholics.” Their wording indicates they know they could slip back into drinking at any time, given the right circumstances. “One day at a time” is one of their slogans.
You can be a “recovering worrier” or a “recovering gossiper” or a “recovering glutton.” You can get past your sin, even if the possibility of slipping back into it never quite goes away.
It is a mystery why some people struggle with certain sins. Equally, it is a mystery why some people have an easier time than others in leaving sins behind. Sometimes God immediately takes a sinful desire away, while at other times He lets us struggle against the desire. In every case we can be confident that it is His will for us to resist temptation and that He is present with us to help us in remaining pure.
Do not proud of yourself. Neither be hopeless, since God is at hand. Prayerfully, develop a list of your sin symptoms in your mind through prayer and self-reflection, then plan to treat them all through the power of the Spirit. Perhaps you will add to your list later as you learn more about yourself, but for now the list gives you places to start.
To help you in your struggle against sin, we would like to give you a way of mentally organizing the universe of sins.
Introducing the Sin Families
Sins tend to gather in what we call “families”—groups of related sins. If you have a problem with drinking, for example, it is a part of the overindulgence family, which includes such sins as gluttony, drunkenness, drug abuse, shopaholism, and the overuse of media. All such sins relate to indulging too much in some kind of substance or experience.
But overindulgence is just one example. We have come up with ten sin families, each with its own parent sin. The “parents” include such foundational sins as pride, anger, and sexual immorality. In the families headed by these parent sins there may be found several other related sins.
Of course, describing sins in families this way is somewhat artificial. It would be possible to come up with a different list of sins and to arrange them in a different way. Furthermore, there is overlap among the families. Violence, for example, might be considered to partake of both anger and divisiveness (two different “parents” in our scheme). Real life is not as cut and dried as our list of sins may appear. Nevertheless, we believe our sin families represent a helpful way of looking at the universe of sins and figuring out where our particular sins fit in.
Each of the ten chapters in part 2 is focused upon a particular family of sins. The beginning of each chapter presents some material that will help you understand one set of sins from a biblical perspective. Then, at the end of each chapter, comes a special section called “Soul Prescription.” Here you will be guided through a process of applying the five steps of spiritual healing to your particular sin problem. This is where it all gets practical.
Think about all the sins that are troubling you now. These make up your own hit list of tenacious sins. Plan to deal with them all, if not at the same time, then one right after the other Regardless of the areas that concern you, your success in finding freedom from sin habits depends on how honest you are prepared to be with God and yourself. It is true that in this life you will never cease struggling with temptation. Nevertheless, as you deal with the sin in your life, tell yourself, I will face my problems head-on. With all my strength, I will seek out God and His will for my life. I will settle for nothing less than ever-advancing progress toward becoming more like Christ. God will honor your authentic attempts to draw near to Him, and as you do, you will find that He is already there.
Life Reflection
1. What sins are in your sin diagnosis right now?
2. Which chapters in part 2 do you want to read, and in which order?
3. What gives you the most hope as you head into a process of healing from your sin?
Visit www.SoulPrescription.com for more insights and resources, and to download a free leader’s guide for small group Bible studies.