Every Sin Is Just A Past Habit - Overcoming Sin
There are so many Scriptures in the Bible talking about our new creation reality. We are a completely new creation. We are no longer sinful. We have been made righteous in Him. In other words, every sin is now a choice, not because we are bound by sin (we have been set free), but because we deliberately act on our past habit.
To sin is to act contrary to who we really are. It's to walk opposite of our true identity, who does not sin. It's to practise the past habit even though we are no longer the same person.
Elephant handlers use small ropes tied to the ground with tiny sticks to keep a big elephant in place. How does this work? When the elephant was young and small, the handlers tie the baby elephant to a huge trunk with large ropes. The baby elephant pulls and tugs and fights until it tires out. Soon it learns that it cannot move when tied up.
The handler then uses increasingly smaller ropes and sticks as the elephant grows bigger, but the elephant never tugs at them. The big elephant, based on the past habit, learnt that it simply cannot move when tied up. However, the reality is this... it could simply and easily use it's strength to break free from ropes and sticks.
This is the same when we believe in Jesus and become a new creation. There are past habits that we have been living in as non-believers with old sinful nature. Even though we have become a new creation, we subconsciously still walk in our past habits.
Every sin, thus, is a past habit. Because the new creation does not walk in sin. The new creation is about learning and walking in new habits of the divine nature. It's about the renewal of mind. When we can subconsciously walk in our new nature, our mind has been renewed.
I saw how my son grew from a baby to a toddler. A baby crawls when he doesn't know how to walk. A baby crawling is likened to his old nature. When he realises that he can walk as a toddler (new nature), he keeps on walking. Even if he stumbles at times, he immediately picks himself up and continues walking.
He doesn't say, "Maybe I should go back to crawling and stop walking, since I stumble at times", because he sees the possibility of walking. He is excited about his new ability. He keeps learning and practising his new ability by walking in his new nature. The moment he realises that he can walk (as a toddler), he stops going back to crawling (as a baby). He stops his past habit of crawling and continues in the new habit of walking.
Eph 4:22-24 says, "...PUT OFF, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you PUT ON the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." (emphasis added)
We cannot put off the past habit by putting off the past habit. We have to put off the old and put on the new.
Some people may tell you to stop sinning by repenting or by implementing all kinds of "spiritual measures and programme". If it works, you really don't need Jesus.
Jesus didn't come to change you. He came to kill you.
The old man is no longer us.
The past habit no longer defines us.
Your sin is no longer you.
You are the new man, created in true righteousness and holiness.
You are righteous and holy.
In other words, we keep learning and practising our new nature EVEN IF we stumble occasionally. We keep walking in our identity EVEN IF we go back to our past habit occasionally.
We are no longer held in bondage to sin. That's the reality. Every sin is just a past habit. If you recognise that it is a past habit that you don't have to continue (because you are no longer the person of the past), and you keep on taking on the new habit of the divine nature, it is a matter of time you stop the past habit and walk out your identity - who you really are. #identity
It was for this freedom that Christ set us free [completely liberating us]; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery [which you once removed]. - Gal 5:1
Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. - 1 John 3:9
Through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. - 2 Peter 1:4
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. - 2 Cor 5:17
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. - 2 Cor 5:21
Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Rom 6:11
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. - Gal 2:20
One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. - Phil 3:1
