IS THERE ANYTHING BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE?

"Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior." - John Newton

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We were talking at my house recently about sin, particularly, about ways Christians try to overcome certain sins that all-too-easily take us captive. I have witnessed believers addressing sin with what look to me like purely secular tactics:

"Idle hands (or minds) are the devil's workshop" - or - "Idle hands are the devil's playthings," we have been told. So, the cure for sin is to stay very busy, busy doing something else besides that pet sin, anything else, so long as it occupies our thoughts and our energy and our time and keeps us too busy to notice temptation.

And we create safeguards to protect us in case we accidentally find ourselves with five free minutes when we might be inclined to think about or engage in our pet sin. We put a fence around our pet sin, then a concrete wall around that, then perhaps a row of concertina wire, then...ummm...how about a moat? (Since I am prone to want to eat an entire chocolate cake at one sitting, I will not eat cake of any kind. And just to be safe, I will cut out all other desserts, too. As a matter of fact, I will completely eliminate sugar from my diet. There, that should do the trick!)

And then, just to be extra safe, we recruit an accountability partner - someone to check our email or internet browser, someone to record the number when we step on the scale each week, someone who promises to drop everything and rush over at a moment's notice when I text the code word that tells her my clueless next-door neighbor just dropped of a decadent three-layer chocolate cake at my house, and my self-control is about to go out the window!

I am all for being wise and careful and having accountability. Don't get me wrong. Those are good things, and they can be helpful to us in our fight against sin. But the above strategies for overcoming sin, while perhaps helpful to some degree, all center on the sin. They are about...

• Don't do [particular sin].
• Or, do this other thing, so that you don't do [particular sin].
• Or, recruit Fred to check and see if you are doing [particular sin].
• Or, call Sally if you think you are about to do [particular sin].

These tools, in and of themselves, do nothing to address the issue of the heart. They only address our behavior. And yet, it is from the heart that our sin springs. If we don't address the heart, then, no matter how many safeguards we employ, sin is an ever-present threat, still consuming our thoughts, emotions, and energy.

Is there not some way to take the focus off the sin and to recenter the heart on something entirely different instead? Practically, instead of thinking "Don't eat the whole chocolate cake" - or - "Eat some hummus instead of a whole chocolate cake" (Yeah, right!) -  is it possible for me to be so completely enraptured with something else, something so good and lovely and virtuous that, by comparison, the thought of eating an entire chocolate cake sounds about as appetizing as eating a platter of mud pies? Is it possible for me to become so delighted with this other thing that chocolate cake doesn't even enter my mind?

Is there anything in the world that good, that big, that wonderful? So beautiful that it fills my vision and becomes the focus of my desires? So altogether lovely that, with my eyes fixed firmly on that one thing, I no longer find any attraction for the cheap, bawdy trifles that would otherwise entice me?

YES! I believe there is something that big - a someone, THE Someone, God himself!

Sadly, I have seen that even within the church, we act as if we believe the "solution" to the problem of sin is a method, a list, a plan...instead of a Person. And we mete out to our brothers and sisters our "method" instead of the person of Jesus. Oh, sure, we'll get around to God and Jesus and all that spiritual stuff eventually. Of course we will - it's what we do. But first, we need to address the undesirable behavior. The behavior is the real problem, right? (What, not the heart from which the behavior flows?!)

To the extent that we believe the behavior is the problem, to that extent we have forgotten our true condition. To the extent that we think we can fix the problem of sin with a method or a plan, to that extent we underestimate how desperately we need a Savior. And to the extent that we think modifying behavior is the solution, to that extent we have forgotten the Gospel.

God, when I am struggling with sin, show me Jesus, in all his ravishing beauty. Grant me true repentance for loving anything more than my Savior, who loves me - a faithless child - with unwavering faithfulness. Oh, what compares to Christ and his steadfast love?! Nothing!

God, when I see my sister or brother struggling with sin, please, help me to show them Jesus.

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"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." - C. S. Lewis

"It grieves me to say this, but the primary reason people are in bondage to sin is because people are bored with God. One of Satan's most effective tactics is to convince us that God is a drag." - Sam Storms