Theology Thursday 04 - Sin Management

For all intents and purposes I have been a Christian for the entirety of my life. I asked Jesus to come into my heart when I was 5-years-old; that prayer at Highland Community Church was important and it meant a lot for my life. However, the decision at 13-years-old to truly commit my life to Jesus was much more important and has meant a lot more for my life. By God’s grace, I’ve never had any major falling away; for the most part I have lived my life well and have been a pretty good person. The only problem is that a relationship with Jesus isn’t necessarily about being a good person.

I know that being a good person won’t bring me eternal life, now or when I die. I could be a good person and still lack purpose; I could be a good person and still be separated from God for eternity. Yet, even though I know that being a good person isn’t what being a Christian is all about, that seems to have become the focus of my life with Christ. I’ve heard so many sermons on being a good person and I’ve given so many sermons on striving to stay away from sin that my life has been reduced to a practice of sin management. I feel that as long as I can stay away from sin and be a good person then I’m doing everything Jesus wants and I’ve got a healthy relationship with him.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s very important that we avoid sin. If we are followers of Jesus then we need to follow the example of his righteous life. Obviously we’ll never be fully free from sin until we receive our glorified bodies, but we should commit ourselves to the process of sanctification; we should seek after righteousness. But seeking after righteousness should never take the place of seeking after Jesus himself.

Sin management tries to seek righteousness without truly seeking after Jesus.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve traded a passionate love of Jesus for a passionate love of not sinning. Instead of actively spending time with Jesus, focused on his person and how he wants to transform me, I am actively spending time avoiding sin, focusing on all the things I do wrong and how I can keep them out of my life. While that kind of life may look “good,” it doesn’t exactly look like the full life Jesus promised to give his followers.

The full life that Jesus promised can only be found by truly seeking after Jesus and allowing him to transform us from the inside out. I can spend my whole life avoiding sin and trying to be good but that won’t lead to any sort of true transformation. The goal shouldn’t merely be sin management; it should be true transformation, which causes sin to lose its appeal. Sin will always have some amount of appeal and there will always be temptation, but the more time I spend with Jesus the more appealing he will become, even more appealing than the sin in my life.

We shouldn’t just seek after righteousness; we should seek after Jesus. Righteousness is the natural byproduct of actively, passionately and intentionally seeking after Jesus. In John 15 Jesus says that apart from remaining and abiding in him we cannot bear any fruit. One fruit of that time spent with Jesus is righteousness; another fruit of that time spent with Jesus is less sin in our lives.

When we sit and spend time with Jesus we see who he is.

When we actively relate with Jesus we’re better able to be who he wants us to be.

When we intentionally seek after Jesus he can make us righteous as he truly transforms us from within.

Christians use the term “relationship with Jesus” quite a bit; I’ve even used it in this post. Even though I use the term, I’m still trying to figure out its full meaning. I may not fully understand the term but I do know that a relationship with Jesus is not about sin management. The life that Jesus wants for us goes beyond just trying to avoid the bad things more often than we give into them. The life that Jesus wants for us is about being transformed and living the life for which we have always been intended. That starts with actively relating to Jesus, not just being in a relationship with him. And as we spend time with him and seek after him, sin management will fall to the background as we simply enjoy living life with Jesus and the righteousness that comes from walking with our Lord and savior.

How have you bought into the practice of sin management?