There is an ordered approach to cleansing from sin: 1. Cleanse away unbelief and loveless fear that rejects Jesus' teachings; 2. Cleanse away distrust of truthfulness and practice of lying; 3. cleanse away hatred and sinfully bad anger management and love of killing and murder; (here love and recognition of the other believers must come into the picture) 4. cleanse away sexual immorality in various forms and this can be a matter of assembly or other group discipline; 5. cleanse away all paganism such as idolatry and magic (Wikka being one modern aspect but there are others and it might be a local matter depending where you are). Ref John 8, Eph 4-5, Rev 21-22. Note, though, the first apostles spoke and wrote by the Holy Spirit and did not merely present an ordered list of sins to repent of and leave it at that. They agreed on these sins as being typical sins to be cleansed away (in Galatians Paul didn't call them sins so much as fruit of the flesh) in sanctification by the Spirit and the words of God.
If we can then we should break away from the sins listed as particularly evil and do what is the alternative good - so if we tend to lie we can focus on telling the truth so we get less room for lying and if we get hateful when angry we can focus on filling our prayers with intercession for those who anger us and try to do good to them and all the more to believers. But the whole thing about sins is that they enslave so focusing always on all of Christ's teachings or as much as we can remember and understand of them and likewise on teachings and leadings of the Holy Spirit and Christ's workers is how to engage the promise of receiving truth from Christ that sets us free from such slavery. Then keeping on with this even after freedom comes is how to stay 'in Christ' and 'bear fruit'.
If we can then we should break away from the sins listed as particularly evil and do what is the alternative good - so if we tend to lie we can focus on telling the truth so we get less room for lying and if we get hateful when angry we can focus on filling our prayers with intercession for those who anger us and try to do good to them and all the more to believers. But the whole thing about sins is that they enslave so focusing always on all of Christ's teachings or as much as we can remember and understand of them and likewise on teachings and leadings of the Holy Spirit and Christ's workers is how to engage the promise of receiving truth from Christ that sets us free from such slavery. Then keeping on with this even after freedom comes is how to stay 'in Christ' and 'bear fruit'.
