Both of your authors know what it is like to be ill. I (Bill) have been diagnosed with a progressive lung disease, while I (Henry) have suffered from Parkinson\u2019s disease for years. For each of us, it was crucial to get an accurate diagnosis in order to begin the appropriate form of treatment for our ailment.<\/p>\n
Equally, we both know what it is like to suffer from sin sickness\u2014a more serious matter. And we know how important it is to get an accurate diagnosis for this kind of sickness as well. Sometimes the symptoms can be misleading. When it comes to sin, we often have to keep probing beyond the obvious explanation, because it may turn out that we have multiple cases of habitual sin at one time.<\/p>\n
If you are reading Soul Prescription,<\/em> chances are that you have one particular sin in mind that you want to deal with. Before you start trying to treat your troublesome sin, do a careful self-diagnosis. Consider whether there may be other sins in your life that you are overlooking or downplaying. Ask God to show you all that is wrong with your behavior. While we may have one dominant sin, rarely if ever do we have just one sin acting in our life at a time. We have many.<\/p>\n Sins often interact and feed on each other. It is best to treat them all, not just one of them. Otherwise, while one symptom may improve, others will likely grow more grave, and you could be worse off than when you started.<\/p>\n We cannot afford to take a simplistic a view of our sin problem. \u201cThe human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?\u201d (Jeremiah 17:9). Only God knows. With His help, we can keep testing and examining our lives to expose ever more thoroughly the wickedness that is lodged there.<\/p>\n The sins in our lives are not like the stars in a constellation, with the number never varying and their positions remaining fixed. Instead, our sins are more like a flock of birds on a fence rail, with some birds joining their fellows, others flapping away, and the whole flock milling about. In other words, sins may disappear from our lives and then reappear, perhaps joined by others, recombining in a somewhat different form every time. There is, in fact, an infinite number of formations that sin may assume.<\/p>\n Because our sin diagnosis keeps changing, we need to constantly remain on the alert. First we need to be alert to what we are doing and thinking. Then we need to be alert to how our actions and thoughts line up with the Bible\u2019s teaching.<\/p>\n We glance at ourselves in a mirror several times a day to see how we are looking. In the same way, Scripture is like a mirror that shows us who we really are. And we need to keep turning back to it to remind ourselves of how human beings are capable of going wrong.<\/p>\n The laws and commands of Scripture tell us what kinds of behaviors make God frown. The stories contained in Scripture show us the ways that real (that is, sinful) people like us have interacted with a holy God. In other words, both the Bible\u2019s \u201cprescriptions\u201d and its \u201cdescriptions\u201d help us understand our condition better.<\/p>\n Not only do we need to listen to what Scripture tells us; we also have to obey it. That was the apostle James\u2019s point. \u201cIf you just listen and don\u2019t obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you keep looking steadily into God\u2019s perfect law\u2014the law that sets you free\u2014and if you do what it says and don\u2019t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it\u201d (James 1:23-25).<\/p>\n The broad diversity of human sin appears in Scripture. These include sins of action, thought, and feeling. They also include sins of commission and sins of omission\u2014that is, doing things that we should not and not doing things that we should do. \u201cRemember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it\u201d (James 4:17).<\/p>\n Identifying all our sins in a biblical way, then, is a prerequisite to successful healing of the soul. We have to know what sins to go after in our lives if we want to defeat them. What symptoms of a sin-sick soul have cropped up in your spiritual system?<\/p>\n One tool that may help you identify your sins is reflection on your own personality and how that predisposes you more to some sins than to others.<\/p>\n Click here to continue reading abridged chapter 8: \u00a0YOUR SIN DIAGNOSIS<\/a><\/p>\n Click here to let us know how this helped you.<\/a><\/p>\n Have you ever wondered why you are more vulnerable to certain types of temptation than to others? Have you ever wondered why your sin diagnosis looks different from that of a friend or a family member? Why does your problem happen to be with this<\/em> sin and not that<\/em>?<\/p>\n Each of us has a unique personality, and our personality type predisposes us more to certain kinds of sin than to other kinds. By understanding our personality type, then, we can better predict what kinds of temptation might most easily waylay us. We all are born with a sin nature, but the way in which our innate sinfulness is manifested will vary based upon at least three areas affecting our personality.<\/p>\n The first factor is our family environment<\/em>\u2014what kind of home we grew up in. It may seem that our childhood was a long time ago. But because childhood experiences happen at a formative time in our lives, they can exert an influence upon us for the rest of our lives, whether for good or for ill. They help to determine our sin diagnosis.<\/p>\n A second factor helping to determine our particular tendencies to sin is our individual temperament.<\/em> The many factors of temperament can influence how our sin nature expresses itself.<\/p>\n A third factor that affects our sin diagnosis is the impact of external events.<\/em> You have been through a unique series of experiences in the course of your years, and they have contributed to making you who you are. How have these experiences affected your spiritual health? External events build upon the foundation of family environment and temperament to set the pattern for sin susceptibility.<\/p>\n \u201cKnow thyself\u201d is an ancient maxim of philosophy. It is good advice in many areas of life, not least in applying the soul prescription to your sin problem. Take some time to ask God for insight into yourself, to think through your personality history, and to get the opinions of those who know you best so that you can use your personality as a clue to your sin diagnosis.<\/p>\n As we continue in our investigation of sin sickness, we will learn that if we do not deal with our sins early on in their development, they have a way of gathering more<\/em> sins and worse<\/em> sins. They snowball. Or maybe it is more like an avalanche!<\/p>\n Often there is an accumulation and the escalation of sin in a person\u2019s life. A good example of this type of pattern would be in the life of King David.<\/p>\n When we think of David and sin, our minds often jump immediately to Bathsheba. But perhaps David\u2019s first sin in that period of his life was irresponsibility,<\/em> as he chose not to go to war with his troops. Then he entertained lust<\/em> as he ogled the bathing Bathsheba. This led swiftly to adultery<\/em> when he had sex with the neighbor woman. Then he practiced deception<\/em> in trying to get Bathsheba\u2019s husband, Uriah, to sleep with her so as to account for her pregnancy. Finally, he arranged for Uriah\u2019s murder.<\/em> (See 2 Samuel 11:1-15 for the whole story.)<\/p>\n That\u2019s how little sins grow into big ones. For David, the sequence of events led to a dramatic change for the worse in his fortunes. His family life and kingship were never the same again.<\/p>\n Many of us are like David, thinking we can safely dabble in little sins. Foolish! Sin is sin. It is always serious. It always erects a barrier between us and God. And any sin can become a beachhead for others, affecting not only ourselves but also others in a myriad of harmful ways. The ripples of sin spread and grow.<\/p>\n Dabbling soon becomes outright indulgence. Invariably, if a Christian has seemed to take a sudden fall into sin, a closer inspection will show that the person had for some time been flirting with sin before openly courting it.<\/p>\n If you want to keep your sins from multiplying like cancer cells and growing like monsters in a nightmare, you need to act soon and act decisively. The earlier in the process of sin growth you act, the easier spiritual healing will be. However well developed the sin in your life has become, whether your sins are \u201csmall\u201d or \u201clarge,\u201d it is best to act today rather than tomorrow. Never forget the way that sins have of getting worse and more numerous.<\/p>\n Since we never get past the danger of temptation, we never get past the need for vigilance and prevention of those sins to which we are prone.<\/p>\n Click here to continue reading abridged chapter 8: \u00a0YOUR SIN DIAGNOSIS<\/a><\/p>\n Click here to let us know how this helped you.<\/a><\/p>\n Trying to live a holy life is a complex proposition. It is not as simple as deciding to obey a few rules and then doing it.<\/p>\n While temptation may change its aspect or approach us from a different angle, it never goes away. It is like driving a car. Whenever you drive a car, you are continually subjecting yourself to the risk of an accident. In the same way, just by going through life, you are continually subject to temptation.<\/p>\n Every day, we are an invitation for temptation. The temptations we give in to reveal our peculiar weaknesses. Then they produce the sin symptoms that comprise our particular diagnosis at a particular time.<\/p>\n It would be easier to resist temptation if sin were not so attractive. With most sins, we are not talking about something that seems awful; we are talking about something that could potentially feel wonderful. Many times, to do the wrong thing is more agreeable than to do the right thing. So even though we know that the right thing is best for us in the long run, we choose the fleeting pleasures of sin anyway. It is only when we realize the true destructiveness of sin that we are willing to seek change.<\/p>\n A complete cure for sin will come only at our glorification after death. In this life we will never stop struggling with sin\u2014we will never entirely settle the matter.<\/p>\n Yet there is cause for hope. Salvation opens the doors to God\u2019s resources, and so the Spirit can substantially defeat sin for us in this life as we obey God\u2019s commands.<\/p>\n Remember this: we can get to a point where we never again repeat a sin that was once a regular habit for us. It really is possible to win over a sin. We may never be free from the temptation again, and we likely will fail God again in another way later on. But as we deal with our sins one after another, we can experience victories over each of them in turn and over time raise our level of holiness. You can get past your sin, even if the possibility of slipping back into it never quite goes away.<\/p>\n It is a mystery why some people struggle with certain sins. Equally, it is a mystery why some people have an easier time than others in leaving sins behind. Sometimes God immediately takes a sinful desire away, while at other times He lets us struggle against the desire. In every case we can be confident that it is His will for us to resist temptation and that He is present with us to help us in remaining pure.<\/p>\n Be not proud of yourself. Neither be hopeless, since God is at hand. Prayerfully, develop a list of your sin symptoms in your mind through prayer and self-reflection, then plan to treat them all through the power of the Spirit. Perhaps you will add to your list later as you learn more about yourself, but for now the list gives you places to start.<\/p>\n To help you in your struggle against sin, we would like to give you a way of mentally organizing the universe of sins.<\/p>\n Click here to continue reading abridged chapter 8: \u00a0YOUR SIN DIAGNOSIS<\/a><\/p>\nThe Bible as a Mirror<\/h2>\n
The Personality of Sin<\/h2>\n
The Problem with \u201cLittle\u201d Sins<\/h2>\n
Becoming a Recovering Sinner<\/h2>\n