Sin has a way of causing a lot of confusion among Christians. Sometimes its because we don’t read our Bibles every day, so we’re not certain about what God has told us to do (although our conscience still pokes at us even when our mind may not be up to speed). Sometimes its because our desire for certain sins is very strong and we are not praying to God, in those moments of temptation, to ask him to help us turn away these sinful desires. Other times we get into deep theological debates with ourselves about what The Bible says we should be doing. More often than not, however, we find ourselves coming down on the side of sin rather than on the side of God.

How often do we read our Bibles? How often should we read our Bibles?

In Psalms 1:1-2, The Bible says:

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.

Knowing God’s Law, meditating on it day and night, will certainly remove a lot of confusion. It would be hard to plead ignorance of sin if we were studying God’s Law every day.

But why else should we study God’s Word?

In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, The Bible tells us:

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

“That the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” Here we see a direct link between the studying of God’s Word and learning, training, and being adequately equipped to do good; to behave the way we’re supposed to.

Lack of knowledge is not the only problem. Other times, we know what we are supposed to do. God’s Law is written on our hearts. However, because we have not fully trusted God and asked Him to help us repent of our sins, we still hold on to sinful desires and refuse to let them go. Our conscience, of course, still reminds us. Other people, as well, may remind of that what we are doing is not right. Their attempted contribution to our righteous living, however, is rarely accepted positively. We don’t want to be reminded that what we are doing is sinful. These reminders may awaken our conscience and this is not something that we find pleasant.

Even though we may say the right words, even though we may show up to church occasionally; we have not trusted that God can take away the desires for our most deeply held sins. This lack of trust is a particularly dangerous issue.

2 Corinthians 13:5:

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you– unless indeed you fail the test?

We must test ourselves to make certain that or faith in Jesus is sincere. If we really believe what we say we believe, then we will ask God to take away the desire to sin against Him. Will we still fall into sin? Yes. But rather than making excuses for our sin, we will confess our sins and ask God to forgive us and help us to not commit these sins again. Unfortunately, often times we make excuses for our sins. Is this delighting after God’s Law? What does this say about our faith?

In 1 John 2:3-6, The Bible speaks very plainly:

And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

If our desire for sin remains, if there are particular sins we refuse to give up and, rather than asking God to take these desires away from us, we instead defend and justify our sins; how then can we say we know what Jesus really did for us? Are we walking the way Jesus walked?

We are at great risk if we are so willful that we refuse to ask God to help us stop sinning against him; as we see in Hebrews 10:26-31:

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Often times we find ourselves quite torn. We are fairly certain that the desires we have, the things we are about to do, are not right; yet we are confused. We feel that maybe The Bible wasn’t clear on this particular issue. We remember Bible verses that would seem to give us permission to do the thing that we are conflicted about, or at the very least, seem to show that God is willing to look the other way.

We remember part of the story of Jesus and the adulteress in John 8:7:

But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

We chose to see this as God turning a blind eye to our sins; that whatever we do, God will not hold it against us. However, in this story, we tend to overlook that fact that it was God’s Law, the woman’s guilt, and the impending consequences that lead her to a repentant heart.

We also tend to forget what else Jesus said in verses 10-11:

And straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” And she said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go your way. From now on sin no more.”

We like to forget the “sin no more” part.

This is just a simple example of the selective theology that we’re capable of. Our desire to sin leads us to even use God’s Word to justify our sinful behavior. This is the same thing the Devil did when tempting Jesus in the wilderness. The Devil said “It is written…”. Do we not do the same thing when we try to use Bible verses out of context in order to justify our sins?

Isn’t it interesting, that when it comes to justifying our sins, we always give sin the benefit of the doubt.

“Well, The Bible is unclear about that.” “That’s a translational error.” “The Bible kind of contradicts itself on that one.” “Different people interpret that differently.”

We actively undermine our own faith by calling into question the validity of The Bible. If certain parts of The Bible are ok to ignore, which ones are we to not ignore? Which ones are true if others are not? We are willing to put our faith at risk simply to justify our sins.

We have all sorts of ways to ignore the parts of The Bible we don’t like or that conflict with our lifestyle and the things we want to do. If we are greedy and materialistic then we point out that Solomon had great wealth. Of course, we don’t choose to read the actual part of The Bible that talked about his.

2 Chronicles 1:7-12:

In that night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, “Ask what I shall give you.” And Solomon said to God, “Thou hast dealt with my father David with great lovingkindness, and hast made me king in his place. Now, O LORD God, Thy promise to my father David is fulfilled; for Thou hast made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth. Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people; for who can rule this great people of Thine?” And God said to Solomon, “Because you had this in mind, and did not ask for riches, wealth, or honor, or the life of those who hate you, nor have you even asked for long life, but you have asked for yourself wisdom and knowledge, that you may rule My people, over whom I have made you king, wisdom and knowledge have been granted to you. And I will give you riches and wealth and honor, such as none of the kings who were before you has possessed, nor those who will come after you.”

Solomon did not seek wealth or personal gain. He did not even ask for a long life. All he wanted was the ability to govern God’s people justly. It is precisely because Solomon did NOT want wealth or his own glory, but instead wanted the ability to serve God in the position God had put him in, that he was given a stewardship over wealth. (We also ignore 1 Timothy, chapter 6…particularly verses 17-19)

Again, we all too often choose to twist God’s Word for our own purposes.

Why do we do this? Why when there is a question, do we always seem to come down on the side of sin? If we don’t understand something The Bible says, instead of reading The Bible to find out for sure, we just assume our sin is ok. Sin gets the benefit of the doubt. Rather than going to church so that we can learn about God’s will so that we’ll be prepared when we encounter temptation; we ignore church or any other means by which we may learn God’s will. We don’t read our Bibles every day. We have no pastor to ask questions of. We set up our circumstances so that we can conveniently plead ignorance.

When is the last time we were in a tempting situation and thought to ourselves; “I’m not sure if this is right or not. I seem to remember The Bible talking about not doing this. Plus, it doesn’t feel right. Why am I confused about this? I better not do this. I don’t want to risk sinning against God after everything He’s done for me.”?

This is not a conversation that we often have with ourselves. In fact, many may have never had that conversation with themselves.

Why don’t we ever give God the benefit of the doubt?

If we are confused about doing something; that should be the first sign that it’s probably wrong. If we find ourselves making excuses; if we find ourselves trying to justify our actions or talking around what The Bible says, then we can be sure that we shouldn’t be doing the thing we’re thinking about doing.

We may even find ourselves asking others for their opinion on an issue. We may ask another Christian friend or family member. We may even ask someone at a church; a church leader or even the pastor. Even in this case, if the conversation begins to sound like a justification for sin, we should probably stay away from whatever action we’re contemplating.

In general, if we are trying to find loopholes in God’s Word, then we are trying to find a way around God. We are fundamentally trying to find out what we can get away with. Is this the mindset of someone who delights in God’s Law?

Let’s trying giving God the benefit of the doubt.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:22, The Bible says:

Abstain from all appearance of evil.

We are to not even give the appearance of sinning. Our sins can weaken the faith of other Christians and hypocrisy can give non-Christians an excuse for not wanting to know more about God. There may even be those in our own families, in our own households, who may not believe in God. How seriously do they take God and His Word when even those who claim to believe in Him, make excuses for sin?

So, the next time we find ourselves in tempting situations, rather than spending our time and energy constructing excuses for our sin; let’s save a lot of time, guilt, hypocrisy, and faithlessness by just asking God to help us. Let’s ask Him to help us escape the tempting situation we’re in.

Let’s also remember to pray to Him, every time we find ourselves in temptation, and ask Him to show us the escape every time. Let’s pray every day and thank Him for all the incredible things He’s done for us, not the least of which is giving us an eternity with Him in heaven, at the sacrifice of His only Son. Let’s go to church and read our Bibles so that we can better know God’s will and serve Him the way we should.

Let’s really understand what God has done for us and continues to do for us every day. Let us not “trample under foot the Son of God” just so we can justify our sinful desires. Let us do what God wants us to do above all else. Let us justify doing His will. Let’s trust that His way is better for us than sin’s way or the world’s way. If we really mean what we say about our faith in God, how can we willfully chose sin over Him?