Sins We Are Born Into, and Must Overcome

[JTC]

Oh boy, I was born into quite a few. This is a problem we all have. I'm posting this because with God's help most are gone. Although some are a constant battle.

1.  Gluttony, my family (and extended family) saw nothing wrong with eating until our bellies hurt. No wonder we were almost all extremely obese. The odd thing is they were all Catholics and Catholicism sees Gluttony as 1 of the deadly sins. I went on my first diet at 15 bc I wanted a girlfriend. I got a gf probably the best one I ever had. But we were too young & I was way too dumb. But I'm happy to say I'm still friends with her. She was saved before me. She constantly preached the Lord to me even though I wouldn't believe her. However, I finally did.

2. The Love of Money. To want constant things. Girls usually want clothes & shoes, while boys want toys. Those toys grow as we do. They become more expensive & sophisticated. Today a smartphone can be a toy. Granted, we all need a phone since they removed every pay phone, but $1,000 for an Iphone. No way. Again, I was lucky bc I started seeing the futility in possessions at 15. And I never loved possessing money for the sake of money bc I watched my parents become miserable over it. Once I found the Lord I knew this had to go. Today I won't buy anything unless I need it to sustain my life. Additionally, I give to charities & God's work, as I am able. Praise be to the Lord.

3. Thou Shalt Criticize Thy Neighbor (not) especially when it's something you do as well. Ever hear someone tear apart someone else for doing what he himself does? I was born into a family that made a sport of doing this. They did it to each other and every stranger they knew. It's a terrible personality characteristic and it's also a sin. This is virtually dead in me now, but occasionally it tries to come back.

4. An Elitist Attitude. This is closely related to #3 and it's also a sin. In the Bible we are told, when you're invited to a dinner do not take the best seat, take a lesser seat. Why? Feeling elitist is being smug, conceited, puffed up. God doesn't like this. I want to be pleasing to God. It's rough when you're taught this as a child. I killed this one, I do believe it's gone.

   This list is hardly complete, as I think of more I may add it it. Ever since I decided to walk with God I've become aware of sins I was taught to have. May God help me.

[Who me]

Ultimatly they all are an attempt to replace the love for God with something else.

As the Ot says the 10 commandments are summed up as Love God and love others.

Where in that is love of self?

[johnthebaptist]

On 9/26/2019 at 4:59 AM, JTC said:

Oh boy, I was born into quite a few. This is a problem we all have. I'm posting this because with God's help most are gone. Although some are a constant battle.

1.  Gluttony, my family (and extended family) saw nothing wrong with eating until our bellies hurt. No wonder we were almost all extremely obese. The odd thing is they were all Catholics and Catholicism sees Gluttony as 1 of the deadly sins. I went on my first diet at 15 bc I wanted a girlfriend. I got a gf probably the best one I ever had. But we were too young & I was way too dumb. But I'm happy to say I'm still friends with her. She was saved before me. She constantly preached the Lord to me even though I wouldn't believe her. However, I finally did.

2. The Love of Money. To want constant things. Girls usually want clothes & shoes, while boys want toys. Those toys grow as we do. They become more expensive & sophisticated. Today a smartphone can be a toy. Granted, we all need a phone since they removed every pay phone, but $1,000 for an Iphone. No way. Again, I was lucky bc I started seeing the futility in possessions at 15. And I never loved possessing money for the sake of money bc I watched my parents become miserable over it. Once I found the Lord I knew this had to go. Today I won't buy anything unless I need it to sustain my life. Additionally, I give to charities & God's work, as I am able. Praise be to the Lord.

3. Thou Shalt Criticize Thy Neighbor (not) especially when it's something you do as well. Ever hear someone tear apart someone else for doing what he himself does? I was born into a family that made a sport of doing this. They did it to each other and every stranger they knew. It's a terrible personality characteristic and it's also a sin. This is virtually dead in me now, but occasionally it tries to come back.

4. An Elitist Attitude. This is closely related to #3 and it's also a sin. In the Bible we are told, when you're invited to a dinner do not take the best seat, take a lesser seat. Why? Feeling elitist is being smug, conceited, puffed up. God doesn't like this. I want to be pleasing to God. It's rough when you're taught this as a child. I killed this one, I do believe it's gone.

   This list is hardly complete, as I think of more I may add it it. Ever since I decided to walk with God I've become aware of sins I was taught to have. May God help me.

It seems to me that we are not predisposed to sin. It seems to me we just make the decision at some point to sin, and once we do, we develop a desire to sin again. The more we sin, the more powerful the desire to sin.

[JTC]

22 hours ago, johnthebaptist said:

It seems to me that we are not predisposed to sin.

Hmm, interesting hypothesis. I'm not sure it's always true, especially for all people. Either way, predisposed or not the point of this post is how terrible it is when we are taught to commit certain sins and worse still we're taught it's perfectly normal, acceptable, even desirable. God says no, wipe them out of your life.

[johnthebaptist]

35 minutes ago, JTC said:

Hmm, interesting hypothesis. I'm not sure it's always true, especially for all people. Either way, predisposed or not the point of this post is how terrible it is when we are taught to commit certain sins and worse still we're taught it's perfectly normal, acceptable, even desirable. God says no, wipe them out of your life.

I would agree with your statement about "how terrible it is when we are taught to commit certain sins and worse still we're taught it's perfectly normal, acceptable, even desirable." If we believe we are predisposed to sin, we can blame our sin on our predisposition. I think we simply choose at some point in our lives, probably when we are very young, to sin. The Lord probably expects us to do that. It's probably hard to get through the first few years of our lives without sinning once in a while. We don't even know what sin is, yet.

[Blood Bought 1953]

 

We are not sinners because we sin....we sin because we are sinners....

[JTC]

14 hours ago, johnthebaptist said:

If we believe we are predisposed to sin, we can blame our sin on our predisposition. I think we simply choose at some point in our lives, probably when we are very young, to sin.

Okay JtB, by that reasoning I agree with you, I wasn't trying to give us an excuse for sin. Even with the sins we're taught, once we learn they're sins we must choose to either continue in them or to quit them. As an example, I started fighting gluttony to look better. Many years later I did it for health reasons. Nowadays the first reason is bc it's a sin, what I look like isn't even part of it at my age.

   I'm glad more & more preachers are talking about the virtues of living a sinless life. It is NOT a salvation issue. It's a matter of being pleasing to God, which IMO probably helps us get answered prayer. Well why, you might say? Simply because God knows our heart, mind and what each of us is capable of. So IMO if we won't go out of our way for God why should He do us any favors.

Edited September 29, 2019 by JTC
punctuation

[johnthebaptist]

37 minutes ago, JTC said:

Okay JtB, by that reasoning I agree with you, I wasn't trying to give us an excuse for sin. Even with the sins we're taught, once we learn they're sins we must choose to either continue in them or to quit them. As an example, I started fighting gluttony to look better. Many years later I did it for health reasons. Nowadays the first reason is bc it's a sin, what I look like isn't even part of it at my age.

   I'm glad more & more preachers are talking about the virtues of living a sinless life. It is NOT a salvation issue. It's a matter of being pleasing to God, which IMO probably helps us get answered prayer. Well why, you might say? Simply because God knows our heart, mind and what each of us is capable of. So IMO if we won't go out of our way for God why should He do us any favors.

I wish in my denomination more preachers would speak on the virtues of living a sinless life. The way I see it, sin gets us into trouble. That is why the Lord taught us not to sin, by giving us commandments to follow.

[JTC]

3 hours ago, johnthebaptist said:

I wish in my denomination more preachers would speak on the virtues of living a sinless life. The way I see it, sin gets us into trouble. That is why the Lord taught us not to sin, by giving us commandments to follow.

You are so right. I've seen in my life, and the lives of others what happens when Christians are taught sin doesn't matter because we're forgiven. One brother who was also a good friend would just keep repeating "there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus". Yeah I know. I'm not going to say what happened in this man's life 20 yrs later.

I am going to point out that we all will stand before the Lord after death. Some assume Jesus has no choice but to admit them into His Kingdom simply because they confessed His name. I think Jesus does have a choice. And this is another reason to try and eliminate as many sins as we can. It is a good idea to make our salvation sure  by obeying the Lord. I often worry about my old friend, I haven't heard from him in 19 yrs. I will tell you all this, 19 yrs ago he was sad because he could no longer feel any closeness from the Lord. Maybe that was due to living 20 yrs with a grave sin in his life. I didn't know this yet 19 yrs ago but I do now.

  In another place Jesus said, "we are the salt of the earth". What is salt? It's something that makes food taste better. We are supposed to make life on earth more livable for others. Then Jesus said, "but if the salt loses it's saltiness...". How can it lose the saltiness? I say one way is constant sinning. This then is another reason to avoid sin. We can't be very effective Christians with a ton of sins. You can't be a very good witness for Christ if you have many sins.

   JtB, is there any probability that you can convince your pastor to preach on all the reasons sin is hazardous to life? As we can see, the reasons are for both, this life & the next.

[JustPassingThru]

Like has been stated above, ...sinning doesn't make us sinners, ...we sin because that is our Adamic nature, that is the meaning of:

And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years and fathered (begat) a son in his own likeness, after his own image. And he called his name Seth.  Gen 5:3

All of humanity are the descendants of Adam begotten, born and formed in our mother's womb, ...in his likeness and image.

David said it even more clearer:

Behold, I was  shapen (formed) in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.  Psa 51:5

The Word tells us we commit sins, trespasses and iniquities, sinning is when we are trying and fail, trespasses are when we know better, but do it intentionally, ...iniquity is our inborn nature and they are named in 1 Cor 6:9-10, we are all born with one or more named in this list:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 

What the Holy Spirit is telling us is at the moment of our conception, at the very moment we begin to live, ...we are sinners, ...we are conceived as sinners, we are formed in our mother's womb as sinners and 9 months later we are born fully developed sinners, ...and any mother that has given birth can tell us this is true, ...after the excruciating pain of child birth, ...tired, ...spent, ...exhausted, ...we start to manifest our prideful nature, our arrogant will, ...by screaming and crying, ...feed me! ...proving that even though Adam has been dead for over 5,000 years we possess his fallen likeness and image!  

Friend, the answer to your dilemma is not trying to overcome your sinful nature by your own effort, ...the answer is recognizing that if one is a born again child of God they have the Holy Spirit living inside of them, that means that at the very moment we were conceived, by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God 1 Pet 1:23, ...we became a new creation in Christ 2 Cor 5:17:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.  2 Cor 5:17

In light of this Truth, ...consider what Paul said about the above mentioned list:

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.  1 Cor 6:11

Do you see that, those that are born again children of God are a new creation, the new me wasn't conceived in sin, I was conceived in total righteousness, sinless, ...but, the old man is still alive, ...I'm alive, sharing this new life in this old decrepit body of Adam's likeness and image.

I'm encouraged by my Father to put off the old man and put on the new man:

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.  Rom 6:6-7

For you ought to put off the old man (according to your way of living before) who is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind.  And you should put on the new man, who according to God was created in righteousness and true holiness.  Eph 4:22-24

For the first years of my new life, ...my walk with Jesus, ...I was taught I was the one who had to do the "works," but, thanks be to God for one of His pastors and his faithful teaching of the Word, ...I was taught that I didn't have to "work" to be free from sin, trespasses or my inborn iniquity, ...all I needed was to be renewed in my thinking, in my mind, ...I'm dead, when Jesus was Crucified I was there, in His loins,  and died with Him,  ...that is, since the old man died at the Cross, ...now it's the Holy Spirit living inside of me, giving me His life to energize me, ...that does the "work," ...all I have to do is in faith believe and use what He gives me to overcome the old man.

Lord bless