Perhaps the most incredible discovery of my life is that I do not struggle with sin. I don’t even have a sinning problem. What I have is a worshipping problem. Let me explain.
No one sins while they are worshipping. In fact, it is the furthest thing from their mind. When they are captivated by the beauty and majesty of Christ, when they are delighted in glory of their savior, when their hearts are swelling to the point of overflowing, when their hands are lifted in pure devotion, and when their faces cannot stop smiling with affections for God, they do not sin.
No one thinks about pornography when they are captivated with Christ. No one plans revenge when they are overwhelmed with worship. No one lies, cheats, steals, deceives, lusts, or does any other sinful thing when they are spellbound with love for God. It just doesn’t happen.
Philippians 3:8 demonstrates this truth well:
“Everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.”
So, what does this teach me?
The biggest problem I have is not with sin. The biggest problem I have is not even that I have desires. My chief problem is failing in worship. I sin because I worship too little. I fall short of honoring and glorifying God because I fall short in worship. I delight in all the wrong things because I fail to see the infinite pleasure and delight offered to me by God. I do not struggle with sin. I struggle with worship.
C.S. Lewis said it this way:
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
In sum, God does not want you, a Christian, struggling against your sin. You have been freed from the power of sin because of Christ and you have been made alive by His Holy Spirit. Therefore, your greatest problem is not with sin, it is with worship. That means if you want to gain victory over a particular sin, you must not fight that sin directly. What you must do is fight against your tendencies toward laziness and slothfulness in worship.
