Why We Continue to Fall

by Charles F. Stanley

You’ve tried everything––counseling, accountability, memorizing Scripture, listening to sermons on sin, and avoiding tempting situations. But you still continue to yield to the same sin over and over. Here are three suggestions as to why nothing is working. These are a culmination of things I’ve discovered in my counseling with others as well as in my own passage through the minefield of temptation.

First, we deny we have a problem. We know we have some things to work on … but a “problem”? No way. That sounds too serious. As a result, we don’t pursue a solution with the determination to see it through to the end. By suppressing the truth about our situation, we automatically cut ourselves off from getting the help we need.

The real danger is that people tend to ignore the truth until what began as a small thing becomes a major problem. This behavior is common among alcoholics and drug abusers. Instead of approaching their problem as a full-blown addiction, they treat it like it’s simply a matter of balance. “I just need to cut back.”

Most of us underestimate the power of sin and overestimate our spirituality. As long as you treat your sin as though it is just part of your personality or the result of pressure at work or anything else besides what it is, you will find no relief.

Second, we have not surrendered to the Lordship of Christ. By that I mean we have not recognized Christ’s unconditional right to rule and reign over every area of our lives. As long as we refuse to give up our right to rule in a particular area of our lives, we will never know victory.

Sometimes we play a power game with God. We want Him to give us the power we need to have victory in our lives. But we aren’t willing to surrender that area to His unchallenged rule. We want to use His power to our ends. We want His help, but not to the point where it interferes with our plans and desires.

Power over sin is the means by which we are freed to serve Christ more effectively. It’s not something God hands out to make life smoother for us.

Third, we continually focus on past failure. We allow our past failures to persuade us that we will never change, that there’s no use even trying to do things differently. When we’re tempted, we fail, because we have already been defeated mentally.

The truth is that God has made available to you the power to change. The sins of the past need not characterize your life in the future. No one is destined to be a certain way throughout a lifetime. Your past sins should simply serve as a reminder of God’s grace and goodness.

It’s easy to allow past failures to serve as an excuse to sin again. “Well,” we reason, “I have already done it once. I might as well do it again.” We are easily deceived into thinking that “one more time” won’t really hurt anything. The tragedy is that “one more time” just keeps the sin cycle alive in our lives. A habit is simply a string of individual sins committed on separate occasions.

Each time we sin, it just ingrains that habit a little bit deeper into our emotional being. Sin becomes more and more entrenched. Each time we give in, it becomes that much more difficult to say no the next time.

The apostle Paul certainly had some things in his past that could have slowed him down. However, he wrote:

One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:13-14).

Paul understood that a believer must put the past behind him and move on. If you have a tendency to focus on your past mistakes, join with the apostle Paul. Turn your focus toward the future, toward the things you want to see God do in your life. The past is something you can do nothing about. The future, however, is whatever you allow God to make it.

Think for just a minute. Could it be that you have a genuine problem with sin but are unwilling to face it as such? Is Jesus Christ Lord over every area of your life––your family, friends, jobs, thoughts, goals, relationships, time and money? Do you use your past failures as an excuse to sin? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you may have just discovered why you continue to fall. God desires for you to experience victory. Ask Him for insight into how to overcome the sin that holds you captive.

Adapted from “Winning the War Within: Facing Trials, Temptations and Inner Struggles” by Charles F. Stanley, 1988. p. 181-187.