Do you find yourself in a cycling battle with sin? Have you found that your efforts to amputate sin in your life are met with rapid regrowth and recurrence of that sin? Do you find yourself crying out, O wretched man that I am! Is victory over your sin apparently in reach, but practically elusive?
“I do what I do because I want what I want.”
This principal is a helpful diagnostic test in the midst of sinful responses, helping us to examine our hearts in order to navigate confession, repentance, restoration, and a proper response in future trials. It was one of the first principals we learned in biblical counseling training, and the idea was reiterated continually throughout the various issues we studied. In order to understand our struggles with a biblical lens, we must be able to identify the underlying desires.
Still skeptical? Consider a child who received instructions to change for bed: “I don’t want to.” Sometimes, our sin struggles are blatantly obvious. Why didn’t we do what we knew God has told us to do? We didn’t feel like it. Other times, we may be desperate to do better, only to be battling ourselves in the repetition of sinful habits and tendencies. Why?!
Murder and adultery are the first two sins that Jesus addresses and emphasizes the heart. Take a look at the following passage, where both murder and adultery are identified:
1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:1-4)
It’s true: if you don’t control your feelings and desires, they will control you.
Just as Jesus turned the problems of murder and adultery to the heart, James also counsels his readers with a warning: the problem is in the heart. Our outward sin struggles are the fruit that spring up from roots that are feeding on our desires and feelings. Why do I do such foolish things? I do what I do because I want what I want. Those desires and feelings are controlling me! James 4:2a shows that we are willing to sin to get what we want. James 4:2b shows that we’re willing to sin when we don’t get what we want. In so doing, we elevate those desires above obeying God (adulterously), deciding that our desires are worth the cost of sin in our pursuit for them.
Examine yourself!
Next time you sin, stop yourself, and walk yourself through these verses. When I sinned, what was I wanting? Perhaps I wanted happiness, and I believed the lie that I could find it in another woman, or in overeating, or escaping through drugs, or in having a possession that I stole. Perhaps I wanted appreciation, and since I didn’t receive that desire, I responded sinfully with rude behavior. Perhaps I wanted compassion, and I was willing to sin by pouring out complaining in order to receive that desire.
Wait…
Notice that good desires can turn into heart idols when we let them control us and prompt sinful decisions. That word “lust” or “desire” simply means over-desire. We have given place to someone or something that is out of order with the place God has given to them in our lives. This happens because of the anticipation we get for “pleasure” or “passion”: that which we anticipate will make us feel good in some way, whether physically or emotionally.
We too quickly surrender control to those feelings and desires… and it leads to our ruin! God is not withholding good, but giving a greater good. We must believe the truth about the things of this world, both the good things He has provided for us and the bad things He has forbidden us. We must believe the truth about God, His Son Jesus that He sent to redeem us from sin, and the greater satisfaction we can begin to enjoy now as we grow to know Him more! Thus, we study and obey His Word, that we might not be lured into dangerous appetites by Satan, instead hungering and thirsting for Jesus’ righteousness in our lives!