How do we stop sinning? "... in your faith supply moral excellence, and in moral excellence, knowledge, and in knowledge, self-control, and in self-control, perseverance, and in perseverance, godliness, and in godliness, brotherly kindness, and in brotherly kindness, love ..." wrote Peter in 2 Peter chapter 1. We find we believe in Jesus believing He is the Christ sent into this sad world by God. We believe His testimony that there is going to be lake of fire where sinners will go unless we stop sinning (in this life). The faith that Jesus Himself died for our sins leads to holding fast to the hope in His teachings and leads to awareness of true virtue which makes sin appear evil. The command of Jesus is that we put away such evil. The teachings of Jesus make us wise to what is true. We need to follow through with self control which is an inner struggle we each know with our emotions and thoughts and actions and applying wise avoidance of things that might cause us to sin. Jesus guards us but even so it can be that sin crouches at the door desiring to have us and we must conquer it. The promises in Jesus' teachings spur us on and strengthen our minds against desire and habit but we need to learn to control our inner feelings and thoughts and habits. We each have our special situations and weaknesses though these we find are common to all. There is no special trick or unfailing code. We fight and struggle and keep doing so all our lives holding to Jesus' teachings and those of servants He sends. Church life can help but sometimes can hinder. We add the need to pray and respond better to what God does in our lives. We add the kindness of behaving nicely to others as part of the way to the ultimate goal of being loving saints who do to others as we would have them do to us and love the God who sent Jesus to make this way possible by the shedding of His holy blood. As I believe in and seek to follow Jesus I find the Spirit making me stop and meditate on the sacrifice Jesus became on the cross and led me to renounce what He showed me is sin and know that the blood of Jesus means I can leave that sin and stop doing it. God provided the Lamb sacrifice of His Son. God being father and God wants us to wash our own clothes in that blood. He might do the first bit for you when you believe but He wants you to do the washing too.
