How can I overcome a habitual sin?

Two great correlated truths relate to Christian living — (1) sin dwells in the believer, and (2) grace has overcome the power of sin and provided a way of escape from its tyranny. Many honest and true-hearted believers who desire to live according to God are most anxious to discover some means of avoiding the repeated failures which they deplore. They say: “I have to go again and again to seek pardon for sins, of which I am ashamed. How can I live more consistently?” Yes, by the supply of God's grace, you will be enabled to fashion your life according to the instructions of His word. Simply, the way of faithfulness is the obedience of faith. The same faith that clings to Christ for the forgiveness of sins, must cling to Him for power to obey God even as He obeyed. The secret of a victorious life is the renunciation of self and the determination to do everything by the faith of the Son of God. Looking in faith to Him, sin is suppressed, and holiness attained. The reign of grace in the new life of the believer is “through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

N*. It always does when grace has wrought in the soul. You do quite right to judge it, and yourself for it. Sin becomes hateful to us if we are really born of God, and we are ashamed of ourselves for it. Nor can we ever excuse ourselves, and especially the true Christian, because the grace of Christ is sufficient for him to make him walk aright. But you will find, James, that power against sin will come when you know what it is to be cleansed from it. Not that it will not always require vigilance and prayer for grace; but, when your soul is in communion with the Lord through the peace He gives, you will find there the strength for victory, and for holding your evil nature in subjection. That communion gives happiness and strength. Hitherto you have been more learning your need of cleansing than the efficacy of Christ's blood for it: and that is all right, because, as we were seeing already, God will have realities, and have inward purification and judgment of sin along with peace with Himself, and so shews us the sin we have to be cleansed from. But now remember what we were referring to in Hebrews 9 and 10, how the blood of Christ purges the conscience.

We have hindrances, — He had none. He was a perfect vessel, and could thus say, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." We have the flesh still within us, and the flesh ever lusteth against the Spirit, and seeks to hinder His blessed power in the soul. We thus read in one of the Scriptures cited, "Always bearing about in the body the dying [or rather, the putting to death] of Jesus;" and in Romans 8, "If we through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body," etc. That is, there needs to be the constant application of death to all that we are, if there is to be the unhindered expression, in any measure, of Christ; and the power for this lies in our possession of the Holy Ghost. For example, suppose, under temptation, I am on the verge of giving way to temper, or of falling into sin of any kind, looking away from myself to Christ, and remembering that I through grace have been associated with Him in His death, I am enabled through the Spirit to refuse the flesh, to reckon myself dead to sin; and in this way Christ retains His sway, and He lives in me, and speaks through me, instead of myself. Hence, too, the exhortation not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God (Eph. 4:30); for if by any allowance of the flesh He is grieved, I not only obscure the expression of Christ through me, but I also lose the power, by grieving the Spirit into silence, to mortify the deeds of the body.

There are four operations there. In the first thirteen verses the Spirit is master of the flesh. The thirteenth verse is, "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." It is not by resolution. Do you understand now? Do you understand the difference between the Spirit of God and resolution? Resolution is the work of your own will. The Spirit of God is God's will. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." It is not the mortification of the body, but of the deeds of the body. The Spirit in you is master of the flesh.

By Him we have the power practically to mortify within ourselves the very passions in which we once indulged. No force of our own can accomplish this end. Self cannot put self to death; nature cannot mortify nature. “If by the Spirit ye do mortify — put to death — the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” (Rom. 8:13.) Self-indulgence is sin; God's Spirit gives us power over self, and, instead of indulging self, by Him we put to death the motions after the things in which we once delighted.

The way of victory in everyday life for the believer is solely by the power of the Spirit, and the first step on the way is, putting to death the deeds of the body. There are evil things to which we naturally incline; it is the pleasure of our old Adam to commit specific bad and sinful deeds. The members of our bodies are the servants of our desires; we have absolutely to refuse and put to death those activities, and the power for this action is the Spirit who dwells in us.

We are not, then, in the flesh, though it is in us; but we are not debtors to it, to live after it. The end of sin, or flesh, is death. It is ever ready, we find, to our sorrow, to act in the body. “But if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” If our old nature was not still left ready to act, we should not need to mortify the deeds of the body. It is not mortifying the body, but the deeds of the body. The great thing to see, is, that it is through the Spirit. This is fully brought out in Galatians 5:16-25.

There are those who tell us that the flesh in them is dead, or is "burned out," and will never act again. No, dear reader, the flesh is very much alive, as we will soon see, if we do not heed the Holy Spirit within us. There was a man who insisted that his flesh was dead, and he had no more passionate desires. Someone threw a cup of water in his face, and immediately he lost his temper, and became very angry. His flesh was not dead, but was only waiting for an opportunity to manifest itself. Though the flesh is not dead, and will be with us as long as we are down on this earth, yet we may thank God that He has provided a way in which it may be kept in the place of death. So in Romans 6 we read, "Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with (Him), that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin. For he that has died is justified from sin… So also ye, reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to obey its lusts. Neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God." Rom. 6:6-13, J.N.D. Trans. But the only way I can put this into practical effect in my life, is by walking by the Spirit, letting the Spirit lead me, yielding myself and my members to God, to lead me, and use me as He pleases. So I live to God, not to the flesh.

And by the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the body. We are able now to tread the path marked out for us in chapter 6, we are able to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. We are not now self-occupied, but occupied with God. The law occupied us with the sin which it told us we were not to commit, but instead of this helping us it hindered us greatly, for it directed our attention to that to which we were not to live. The Spirit on the other hand occupies us with Him to whom we are to live, and in this there is real deliverance.

In the sight of God, and in our account by faith, we are crucified with Christ — never without Him. His crucifixion was ours. If we endured for ourselves what He on the cross endured for us, it would be eternal condemnation to us. But as to the "members which are upon the earth," they are not said to be crucified. The old mortal body and its members, prone to evil, are yet present, and they have to be subdued. "Mortification," is the process by which they are to be controlled. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." (Rom. 8:13.) "Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth." To mortify is to put to death. We cannot put to death what is already dead. Mortification, then, is a perpetual killing, if one may so say, of the members and of their deeds.

The believer can say, Because my old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth I might not serve sin, because God, in His infinite grace, has reckoned the death of Christ to my account, and I am in His sight as one who has died to sin — has died with Christ; because of this precious and peace-giving truth, I will with gladness and determination mortify every motion of sin in these members of my body which are yet upon the earth. By the power of the Spirit who dwells in me through God's grace, and who enables me to judge between flesh and Spirit, between good and evil, between the precious and the vile, I will bring the cross of Christ (whereon He died for me) to bear upon everything with which I come in contact, and on all the motives and desires of my heart and of my mind, and "bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," will treat as worthy only of death all the workings of the flesh in my members, whether in thought, or word, or deed.