Why do some Christians continue to struggle with sin(s) in their everyday life?

The Lord has given us the answer.

Reason: It is due the integrity of our hearts aka

• the wholeness &
• undivided states

of our hearts towards Him.

God told Abimelech, a Philistine King of Gerar in a dream the reason why God was able to keep Abimelech from sinning against God himself.

It was due the innocence and honesty of King Abimelech’s heart – the state of oneness in the heart of this king though he was a pagan, a non-believer towards the God of Abraham.

Now God revealed to us that so long if our heart is

• wholesome aka
• wholly aka
• fully

towards Him, He is able to keep us from sinning against Himself.

He even kept literally a non-believer from sinning against Him.

Now this is something we as Christian has to perhaps pause and consider what the Lord has revealed in Genesis 20:6.

Genesis 20:5-6 (ESV)

⁵ Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” ⁶ Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.

In another word, a surrendered heart in Christ gives Jesus

• the full authority and
• rightful deserved sovereignty

in that area of our heart and hence that aspect of our life or in totality.

He will not only be able to

• Uproot any unclean tree(s) in our hearts but also
• Prevent future seeds of thorns and thistles from ever taking root.

A sustained divided heart towards Jesus, His Kingdom & Living,

• continues to nurture a divided mind
• which in turn periodically produces a basket of defiled vocalization and actions

that results in sin towards God.

Reason:

Sin can hide itself within the corners of our hearts behind our flesh much like the roots of plants and trees benefit the surface of the earth – out of sound and sight.

The Lord compares our Heart to the fields and lands of the earth – Matthew 13:18-23.

Matthew 13:18-19 (ESV)

The Parable of the Sower Explained

¹⁸ “Hear then the parable of the sower: ¹⁹ When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.

If there are weedy plants or even defiled tree rooted in our hearts, it will continue to defile us by producing fruits that are bad and defiled.

And due the intrusive and destructive nature of weeds, thorns and thistles, it will choke and inhibit the growth of the good tree that came from the good seed and eventually affects the quality of the good fruits preventing it from even reaching God desired quality.

A heart that is wholesome and in singularity serves a singularity kingdom – Kingdom of God and eventually the Kingdom of Heaven as well.  A divided heart serves an adulterated multitude of kingdoms grieves the Lord.  Unless we surrender our heart completely to Jesus – Numbers 33:55 & Matthew 15:16-19.

Numbers 33:55 (ESV)

⁵⁵ But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.

Matthew 15:16-19 (ESV)

¹⁶ And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

Hence the spiritual moral integrity of our heart is dependent on the degree it belongs to Christ.

Every orchard has an owner.  That is either the Son of Man or the Weed Sower – Matthew 13:36-43.  The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords or the strong man of the house.

If the defiled slave master, the strong man still enjoys a foothold in our hearts, it is like having given a convicted criminal the undeserved sustained right to enjoy an inheritance that is not his; we will then not be to enjoy the real freedom Jesus has given us. Matthew 12:29-30, John 8:34.

Matthew 12:29-30 (ESV)

²⁹ Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. ³⁰ Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

John 8:34 (ESV)

³⁴ Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

We will always continue to struggle with that sin so long we continue to live like the world of which Jesus came to call us out from.

Unless we wake up to the understanding that Jesus has already set us free completely, we will always behave like a freed man with a mentality of a slave to the wrong master. 

Instead of becoming a slave to His righteousness due His Grace, Love, Faith & Mercies, we continue to submit our will to the god of this world.

We need to enthrone the Jesus as Lord over our heart so that He can be the “NEW” RIGHTFUL spiritual master of our “house” – our body, mind, soul and spirit.

So when the Son set us free, we are free indeed – John 8:32.

For He will then be able exert His Full Spiritual, Kingly and Fatherly rights over us from sinning against Himself because

• of the COMPLETENESS of an UNDIVIDED integrity of a surrendered heart unto Him
• by our own free will in obedience towards Him

– that is then completely His and His alone.

Food for thoughts: 

Why the hell bound Devil targets our hearts with regards to sin?

Take a Hint:

Matthew 18:3 (ESV)

and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children,

you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.