Praying for self-control is useless

"The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him;
the cords of his sin hold him fast."
-Proverbs 5:22 (NIV)

Oh boy, let's start Monday off with a bang. I've given up on trying to stop sinning.

That's right, I've finally accepted that trying to stop sinning is hopeless. I know because I've tried and tried and prayed as hard as I could, but then there I go right on sinning, just like Paul admitted to the Romans.

"I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate."
-Romans 7:15 (NLT)

It's especially tough to stop sinning here at the marina on weekends.

"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
-Matthew 5:28 (NIV)

"I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl."
-Job 31:1 (NIV)

Oh man, that's a lot more weight than I can handle ... and Jesus said those words 2000 years ago, when women weren't even seen in public unless they were covered in dresses flowing from head down to toe. Long before halter tops, string bikinis, low-riding jeans and tan lines showed up on the scene.

I mean did Christ really expect me to read and live those words to the letter, without ever stumbling a single time? Is that realistic to expect from me? Hmm ... I thought that if I kept looking hard & long enough, maybe I could find a little wiggle room somewhere in scripture to let me off the hook.

"And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell."
-Mark 9:47 (NIV)

Surely he didn't mean that literally, did he? Did he?

"Every word of God is flawless;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him."
-Proverbs 30:5 (NIV)

So that's what I've been up against.

"I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me."
-Romans 7:22-23 (NLT)

My chances of stopping myself from sinning started looking awfully bleak because the law showed me my sins, but trying to follow the law wasn't saving me from them.

"For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death."
- Romans 7:11 (NIV)

I tried reading the Bible more and more often and prayed God would take temptations and all my bad habits away from me. That didn't work out as easily as I wanted, so I tried self-control till my eyes crossed ... and started feeling out of control and hopeless instead.

"What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" -Romans 7:24

There wasn't any choice about giving up when it came to trying to stop myself from sinning, because I don't have the self-control or will power to do it. No matter how much or how hard I prayed for a shortcut.

Self-control was useless ... what I needed was God-Control.

So I gave up trying to stop sinning when I realized believing in Christ meant I'd already been rescued, and what I had to do was start living a life that was dead to sin. Totally, in every way. As the perfect new creation God intended.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"
-2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)

Giving up on self-control meant realizing I was powerless to stop sinning, and grasping that my old sinful nature had died once Christ began living within me.

"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God."
-Romans 6:8-10 (NIV)

I gave up on the vanity of self-control and the bankruptcy of valiant efforts because I finally understood that being raised with Christ meant that I was made completely new in him. I was dead to sin ... and free from the grip of its temptations.

"So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.

"For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code."
-Romans 7:4-6 (NIV)

Does that mean I'll never sin again? No, but it does mean by surrendering to Christ, and being re-born with him, that I'm dead to sin ... and no longer held captive in its snares.