Victory Over Sin - Part 1 - a podcast by Hari Rao

In this week’s episode, we will be discussing how to have victory over sin. Sin is a term that is used most frequently to describe moral failures and shortcomings, but in this teaching, we will be going deeper in understanding the root issue and how we can overcome temptations through Christ Jesus.

“Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.” (Romans 7:4)

Before accepting and obtaining salvation through Christ, we were living in the flesh according to our sinful passions. When we lived in the flesh, our sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear the fruit of death. Now that we have died to that which has held us captive, we serve in the new way of the Spirit.

It is often perplexing to read what the great Apostle Paul has to say about his personal struggle with sin. He openly shares about the internal conflict and war within. He says that he has the desire to do what is right but ends up doing what is evil. He noticed a force that would not allow him to carry out his godly desires and intentions. This power is called sin. He describes this law as when he wants to do what is right, evil lies close at hand. Although his delight is in the law of God, in his members there seems to be another law waging war against his mind and holding him captive to the law of sin. Many of us can relate to this, that after the salvation experience there are certain sins/vices that we seem to be delivered from the right way, while there are others that seem to be stubborn sins/habits.

This power (sin) hijacks a certain part of the being that controls execution. It can prevent us from executing godly desires. When we speak of sin we are talking about this force, not the different ways of sinning (sins).

Looking at what the Bible calls the original sin, we see that when Adam and Eve went and ate from the fruit, it was considered a sin. It’s not like they killed anyone or did the things that we would generally consider a sin, except they ate from the tree that was forbidden. What then is sin? Sin is a departure from God’s prescribed way of living.

When Moses was on the mountaintop and asked God to show him the way, he wasn’t asking for a geographical location, he asked that God would show him the ordained way that he was supposed to live; the way of living that is pleasing to God.

Sin, therefore, is a departure from the original intention God had for you. Someone can be morally upright and not necessarily be living the way that God ordained for them.

The wages of sin is death. Some may think, well it was only a random fruit that Adam and Eve ate, it’s not like they hurt anybody. It wasn’t even about the tree so much, it was the fact that they digressed and deviated from the way that God asked them to live. When they ate from the tree they chose another way of living. In the garden, they were led by God, but when they chose another way to live, that’s when they came under another controlling power. Sin entered the human being, and within that power called sin was every other sin hidden. The original was against God.

Adam never committed murder, but his son Cain did. Unlike Adam, his sons were not made in the image of God, they were born into the fallen image of Adam.

Sin can remain a certain way in one generation, but the potential of sin is such that it can manifest in an uglier way in another generation.

We must then learn to understand the nature of sin. It is very deceptive to think that we can control the areas that sin touches. Both small and big sins are departures from God’s ideal. Sin can enter your life as an act, but it doesn’t remain an action, it becomes a way of life.

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