We become so accustomed to sins, especially in our secular hedonistic culture, that we regard them as normal behavior. Enter a period of serious prayer, asking the Father to reveal the sins that lie hidden in your heart, mind, and daily activity.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. (Rom. 6:12)

Every Christian should wrestle with the presence of sin in his life. I say “every” because there is no Christian who has ceased or will cease to sin in his life in this fallen world. Paul wrote, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Rom. 7:19). If the Apostle Paul said that about himself, then it is true for all of us. Our problem in continuing to commit certain sins is threefold.

When transgressions have laid siege to our lives and we are anemic in our response, we have failed to realize the serious nature of the sin, the ultimate goal of the sin, and God’s hatred of the sin. If we realized those factors, we would war against those sins with a terrifying hatred. The early twentieth-century evangelist Billy Sunday said it this way:

Listen, I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist, I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head, and I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old, fistless, footless, and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to glory and it goes home to perdition.

He got that from Jesus in Matthew 5:29–30:

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

That is what Jesus says about addressing our own personal sin. Here are three things we can do when sin lays siege in our lives.

1. Pray That the Holy Spirit Would Show You Your Sins

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