Why Do I Keep Sinning?
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By John Piper
About Sanctification & Growth
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Why do you sin? If you want to know what are the dynamics that kill sin and create love, you should ask yourself, Why do I sin? And I’ll tell you why you sin: because sin makes promises to you, and you believe them.
Sin makes promises to your children, your clients. Sin promises them, “What I have to offer is better, more satisfying, more enjoyable, more hope-giving than Christ.” Hebrews 11:25 calls this “the fleeting pleasures of sin.” Sin promises to be better, longer, deeper, sweeter, more satisfying. And to the degree that we are deceived by those promises, we sin. Nobody sins out of duty, right? Nobody gets up in the morning and says, “I have an obligation: I have to sin some today.”
No, nobody sins out of duty. We sin out of pleasure-seeking. And the only reason we opt for a sinful action is because the devil and our own nature has promised us that action will produce pleasure, satisfaction, fame. Whatever your idol happens to be, the promise is that it will succeed.
The only way the power of sin can be broken is by the presence and the promise of a superior pleasure. Yes, I know there is a willpower path to holiness, but to the degree that it succeeds, it fails, because with every sin that you conquer by willpower, seven devils of self-righteousness come in and take its place. Willpower conquering of sin is not a conquering of sin; it’s an exaltation of self.
There is one way to conquer the promises of the pleasures of sin and that is with the power of a superior pleasure. His name is Jesus, and the way he is experienced is called saving faith. That’s what faith is. It is the receiving of Jesus as an all-satisfying treasure. And the reason we have had such a hard time figuring out how you get right with God and how to kill sin and do love is that these are not different pursuits. In fact, Christian Hedonism shows through its lens that saving faith is of such a nature as to be so satisfied in Jesus, it is the power that makes sin lose its compelling force.
