This past Sunday during Neville’s lesson, he shared a startling statistic. Christians transitioning from high school to college are falling away from the church into a life of sin. I can remember the first time I found Summit when I was making this move in my life. This percentage got me thinking about sin and how it impacts everyone. How do we overcome sin? It’s important to know why sin exists and how temptation fuels sin.
We are all guilty of sin. There is nobody in this world that is perfect. Christians can easily fall away from the church. Sin is around us every day. I’ve grown up in the church and over the years have seen this. It’s a sad reality. Peter tells us that this can happen. Temptations are around us all the time. Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. Peter tells us that sin is part of life.
2 Peter 2:20-21: 20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
Matthew 4: 1-4: Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted[a] by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Temptation leads us to sin. Sin leads us to stray away from the Lord. It is an everyday battle that Christians face. Overcoming sin isn’t easy but it is something that can be conquered. We must immerse ourselves in Christ. This is the simplest way to defeat sin. Romans 13:14 says, “ Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” Nobody is perfect but knowing that we have a Lord and savior in Jesus Christ gives us the hope of defeating sin.
