The Emotions That War Within – Part 1

The traditional approach to instilling holiness in people in the church has been to preach with an emphasis on how bad certain things are. There has been an implication within such preaching that God will be reproachful towards people who sin. This attitude has struck fear in the hearts of many believers who have been led to believe that the wrath of God will be directed towards them if they do something wrong.

Insecure and anxiety ridden believers, desperate to get their needs met, have been induced into a state of fear regarding sin because they think that if they do anything wrong, wilfully or otherwise, then God will not meet their needs.

Law preaching has also had the effect of evoking a response of pride in some believers who, due to their own insecurity, low self-esteem and fear – have adopted an attitude of self righteous indignation in order to somehow make their sins look less bad in comparison with other people.

This was an approach adopted by the Pharisees who would pay their tithes and observe all the rules, but they would be quick to judge other people. In the Gospels we read about a woman caught in the act of adultery that the Pharisees brought to Jesus with the express intention of stoning her to death. When they did this Jesus did not side with them, although He arbores sin, Jesus was merciful to the woman and told her to go sin no more – after He gave her the message of no-condemnation. There is a vital clue to be learned here when it comes to living free from sin. (See John 8:11).

The only way to deal effectively with sin is to preach about Jesus from the perspective of what His sacrificial death and resurrection has already done for those who believe in Him. Only God’s grace can effectively deal with the sin problem; it is pride to assume that man has within his own power, the ability to be able to deal with sin.

In the absence of proper teaching on the subject of God’s grace, believers are left with no other option that to use the resources of their own soul in order to tackle the sin problem. But the problem is that if we allow the soul to try to deal with sin by itself then we risk thwarting the efforts of the Holy Spirit to empower us to live a holy life.