7 Verses to Overcome Sin Part Two

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The word of God is sharper than any two edge sword it cuts through the bone and it pierces to the soul, it’s the thing that transforms us. Today in the Marriage After God Podcast we are going over 4 more anchor verses to meditate on when you are trying to overcome temptation.

“For the believer, I actually believed that I was still a slave to sin even though I was saved. I actually believe I was still a slave, that I had no power over it, that this thing in my life was in control, and it’s a complete lie..” – Aaron Smith

Our desire is that today’s podcast not only helps equip you to fight temptation, but that it also prepares you to encourage your spouse when they are wrestling with sin. We pray that this episode blesses you.

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Aaron:
Hey, we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.

Jennifer:
Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Aaron:
And today we’re going to share seven battle verses for overcoming any sin. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.

Jennifer:
I’m Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife.

Aaron:
And I’m Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution.

Jennifer:
We have been married for over a decade.

Aaron:
And so far, we have four young children.

Jennifer:
We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media.

Aaron:
With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.

Jennifer:
We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life.

Aaron:
Love.

Jennifer:
And power.

Aaron:
That can only be found by chasing after God.

Jennifer:
Together.

Aaron:
Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase wholly after God’s will for our life together.

Jennifer:
This is Marriage After God. Hey everyone, welcome back to part two of seven battle versus for overcoming sin. We’re really excited to jump into these next few anchor verses and we just want to encourage you to have pen and paper if you haven’t been taking notes, because at the end of this episode we’re going to go through all of the anchor verses and give you those references. And we just want to encourage you to go through them with your spouse and use these to be able to encourage one another. Because the truth is we all encounter temptation and sin’s crouching at our door and we need to be on guard, we need to be prepared to fight those battles. And so, we just want to welcome you to part two of this series. Thanks for joining us.

Aaron:
Number three, and this is in Romans 8. And this is about… This is the fact that we’re not condemned, which is really cool. There’s therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus, there’s that freedom again, from the law of sin and death. So we’re no longer under the law of sin and death. We’re free.

Aaron:
For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned the sin and the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. Remember that righteous requirements are fulfilled in us because of Jesus who walked not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

Aaron:
For those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.

Jennifer:
That should be an anchor verse too. What verse is that? Six?

Aaron:
That’s six.

Jennifer:
Read that again.

Aaron:
For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. People, this is… If there’s anything true in this world, this is it. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God for it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. And then look at this, verse 9. You however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him, but if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.

Aaron:
If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Verse 12. So then brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

Aaron:
And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with them. And just a quick note, that suffer with him means, it’s talking about how Christ suffered as a man. He was in the flesh for 33 years. And he’s saying provided that we are in the flesh for 33 years and yet walk like Christ did in the flesh, but in the spirit, right?

Jennifer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Aaron:
So we’re not condemned. And the reason that I wanted this to be a battle verse for us is because going back to John 1, where we have an advocate with the father is remembering that we are not condemned, And the definition of condemn means sentenced to a particular punishment, a specific, especially death. So, life outside of God is death and wrath. Life in the spirit with God and salvation is life and life more abundantly.

Aaron:
So brothers and sisters, you’re not condemned. And even if you do sin, you have an advocate with the father. But we’ve been told these things so that we won’t sin.

Jennifer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So, I want to ask a question just for clarification. I don’t know if anybody else, it will help anybody listening. But what is the difference between condemnation and conviction? Because I’ve struggled in the past with condemnation and feeling condemned and wrestling with such negative thoughts about shame and guilt and things that I’ve done. And how do you separate that from conviction, which is…

Aaron:
This is important because a lot of us as believers, especially me, like I felt condemned all the time. I was like, I read what the word says, my life doesn’t look like that. But I feel like I’m, I think I’m a believer. And then so condemnation is believing that I’ve failed, and I’ve lost, and I’m done, and I deserve death. Which are all the things that I did that are true without Christ. Conviction, the Bible tells us that there’s a godly sorrow and a worldly sorrow. Right?

Aaron:
And these kind of go hand in hand, like feeling sorrowful for your sin. Ungodly sorrow is condemnation. Oh, I have to… And what that usually is, he was like, I need to work harder for my salvation. I don’t deserve my salvation. I’m going to try harder and harder, harder and harder, and I’m going to commit myself to God. And one day he’ll be back on my side when I stay away from this sin long enough.

Jennifer:
Do you ever feel that way after you have chosen sin? Like immediately following?

Aaron:
Yeah, that’s how I felt always. I felt like, “Oh, I just need to work harder for God. I need to…” And really what it was is not knowing who God is, and how he works, and what he’s done for me. Forgetting the truth. Conviction, on the other hand, is listening to the spirit of God, which one of his roles in our life is to convict us of sin and righteousness.

Aaron:
So conviction is, “Oh man, I just sinned. That’s not what a godly person does. That’s not what I do. That’s not who I am. God hates that. He died for that and for me.”

Aaron:
And so conviction is remembering who Christ is and going back to that. Saying, “Oh, I’m going to listen to that. No, that’s not who I am. I’m not going to do that again because that hurts my heart. That hurts God’s heart and God loves me. And he saved me from that.”

Aaron:
So, condemnation makes you feel like you’re not with God. And it also makes you feel like you have to work harder for God.

Jennifer:
Or to please him.

Aaron:
To please him.

Jennifer:
To try and please him.

Aaron:
And conviction is listening to God through his spirit and saying, like when my son, condemnation, you know, as a father, if I told my son like, “You’re no longer my son because of what you just did.” That’s condemnation. That’s judgment. Conviction is, “Why did you do that son? That’s not who you are. That’s not kind.” And then my son say, “You’re right, I don’t know why I did that. I’m sorry, dad.” And we’re still in relationship.

Jennifer:
Yeah. As you’re talking and explaining this, I keep seeing how our response should be. So our response to condemnation is more works or a striving to try and be the person that we think we’re supposed to be. Where our response to conviction is repentance.

Aaron:
Yeah repentance.

Jennifer:
Out of a love for God and an understanding of who he is and [crosstalk 00:08:34].

Aaron:
And a return to who we already are. Because in Christ we’re a new creation. We’re no longer that old man, that man’s dead. So it’s not trying to be that old man in a new way. It’s remembering that we’re a new man. And that thing I just did was what the old man did. And I don’t do that anymore.

Jennifer:
I think it was worth it to talk about that for a little bit and I hope that that encourages those listening.

Aaron:
So number four, we have an advocate. We just talked about this in 1st John 2:1, that talks about how we have an advocate with the father. But in Romans 8:26 it says this, “Likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought. But the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. I wanted to bring this one up because, friends, we have… the spirit prays for us.

Jennifer:
So cool.

Aaron:
Right?

Jennifer:
God is faithful.

Aaron:
And then you know what? Jesus even prays for us. In Luke 22:32 Jesus tells Peter, he prayed for him. That is faith without fail because Jesus knew what Peter was going to do and his prayer for Peter was that after doing those things, sinning, he wouldn’t fail. That his faith would be renewed. And he even says, he’s like, “After you come back to me, after you changed your heart, after you repent, I want you to encourage your brothers with his words.” That’s what Jesus tells Peter.

Jennifer:
Go ahead.

Aaron:
No, you go ahead.

Jennifer:
I was just going to say, this is such a beautiful verse. This verse in Luke, in context of marriage, because Jesus is our example, right? It’s who we want to be like and we’re going to follow in his footsteps. And so, in context of marriage, we should be praying that our Spouse, for our spouse, that their faith doesn’t fail.

Aaron:
Yeah, and not hoping they fail.

Jennifer:
That they would be stronger. No, but-

Aaron:
Condemning them when they fail.

Jennifer:
I just saw this really cool picture of marriage and how we can be interceding for our spouse. But the other thing that I want to say in regards to this verse that you brought up is that what Jesus did on the cross was enough. Him dying for us and resurrecting, that was enough.

Aaron:
It was enough.

Jennifer:
And yet he still goes beyond and he intercedes for us and he advocates for us.

Aaron:
He’s our friend.

Jennifer:
I just can’t believe it. I sitting here in awe of how good he is.

Aaron:
It’s because he’s an understanding high priest. He understands us.

Jennifer:
He gets it.

Aaron:
Yeah. He knows what it feels like to walk in the spirit while in this flesh better than we do. So number five, I hope you’re encouraged by all these. this is a powerful one and I bring this up a lot to believers and I think if more and more believers embraced the truth of this, man. Our book, Marriage After god actually.

Jennifer:
We share [crosstalk 00:11:30].

Aaron:
This is like we say about it a lot. This is kind of the theme, is like, we have what God wants us to have. So number five, he’s granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

Jennifer:
2nd Peter 1:3 through 4.

Aaron:
Yep. And I’m going to read it to you. It says this, “His divine power,” God’s divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge.

Aaron:
Again, that word knowledge, I just can’t keep reiterating enough. Christians would be stronger when we’re in the word. When we know that word, when we get the word into us, it’ll come out of us. Knowledge. So his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

Aaron:
This is 100% true for every believer. There is no believer on the planet that has the Holy Spirit that can say, “God hasn’t given me enough. God hasn’t given me what I need. God, why haven’t you helped me?”

Aaron:
First of all, he helped you get out of hell. You had no power to do that. He helped you have a right relationship with himself. You had no power to do that. He helped sanctify you and is sanctifying you. You have no power to do that. He’s doing all of it. And on top of it, he gives it all to you. He’s given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

Jennifer:
And a way of escape, and he’s praying for us, and…

Aaron:
Yeah, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. The gospel is not good news if he only kind of saved us. I say this in our book. He fully saved us. Now, does that mean we’re in our perfect state? Now, the Bible tells us that right now we only see dimly. It also says that we have this flesh that’s corrupted, but that’s, none of those are excuses for sin. Those are just the realities for the believer.

Jennifer:
It also says that his spirit dwells within us.

Aaron:
Yeah.

Jennifer:
That’s powerful.

Aaron:
His spirit dwells within us and brings life to our mortal bodies.

Jennifer:
Yeah.

Aaron:
Partakers of divine nature. His divine power has granted to us all things. All of them are true simultaneously.

Jennifer:
We have to believe it.

Aaron:
So we have to know it. Knowledge, believe it. So believer, you have everything. You do. Romans 12:2 says it like this, “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Jennifer:
So being transformed by the renewal of your mind happens as you-

Aaron:
Renew your mind in the word.

Jennifer:
Renew your mind in the word, yeah.

Aaron:
Yeah. And believing what the spirit has said about us and believing the things that the word says. And guess what? Our minds actually change. We actually think differently. The word repentance literally means to change your mind. To think differently. It means to turn. It means to, I once…

Aaron:
Hey, Marriage After God family. We wanted to take a short moment to let you know about an organization that we believe in in support. Did you know that there are more than four million victims of sex trafficking globally? And 99% of those are women and children. As a Christian and as a father, this truth breaks my heart. What if those were my children? What if that was my wife?

Aaron:
Thank God there are Christ-centered organizations out there that are making a difference. Destiny Rescue is an international recognized Christian nonprofit organization dedicated to rescuing children trapped in exploitation and the sex trade. Their vision is to rescue the sexually exploited and enslaved, restore, the abused, protect the vulnerable, empower the poor and be a voice for those who can’t speak up for themselves. They currently work in seven countries around the world and have celebrated over 4,000 lives rescued from the evils of sex exploitation.

Aaron:
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Aaron:
My family supports Destiny Rescue on a monthly basis. And we want to invite you to join us in saving and protecting children from this wicked industry. Visit destinyrescue.org today and become a monthly partner with us. Thank you.

Aaron:
I once thought this way now I think this way. I once did this and I now do this. That’s the whole idea of repentance. So number six, another truth we need to get inside of us. We are children of God and we are practicing, practicing righteousness. This was actually a really freeing word for me when I learned it. Practicing. And you’ll see why.

Aaron:
1st John 3:1 through 10 says this, “See what kind of love the father has given to us.” First of all, I love that all of these scriptures are wrapped in like Aba father love, father. We’re his children. Usually sin feels so condemning. But every time it talks about him, it’s so freeing, so loving. See what kind of love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Aaron:
Beloved, we are God’s children now and what we will be has not yet appeared. We were just talking about this. We are currently children of God, but what we’re going to be our transformation in heaven and all that is further down the road. But we’re currently children of God. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Aaron:
That’s interesting. Purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning.

Aaron:
So these are big terms that I think a lot of people skip over because like that’s not possible. Well, it says right here, “No one who abide, abides is an action word. Not just floats, not just… Abides means you’re remaining in Christ. As Christ moves you move. When Christ stops you stop. So no one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

Aaron:
Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. Okay, let me say this last verse then I’ll move on. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. For the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

Aaron:
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning. For God’s seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning. Cannot. Think about that because he has been born of God.

Aaron:
By this, it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil? Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. Like wow. First of all, if as believers, if we don’t read this and absorb this, we’re going to miss a whole bunch.

Aaron:
So it says if anyone keeps on sinning has not seen God or known God. When I was walking in certain unrepentant sins I did not know God. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t saved necessarily. What I’m saying is this, the truth that set me free. I didn’t know or believe. So it was saying, “You don’t… If you’re still living that way, you actually just don’t know God. What God has done, what salvation actually means, what the role of the Holy Spirit is in your life. You don’t know.”

Aaron:
So know it. We’ve been talking about knowledge a lot in all of these verses. Knowledge is very important in the believers’ life that we’re growing in knowledge of God.

Jennifer:
Right not just any knowledge.

Aaron:
No knowledge of God.

Jennifer:
His word.

Aaron:
So here’s the key word though. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. So, that word practice, if you think about it, practicing piano, practicing anything, it’s something that you are diligently working at to get better at. If you’re a believer and you’re practicing sin, like you’re getting better at it, you’re finding better ways of lying about it, finding better ways of getting it without anyone knowing, finding better ways of covering it up and hiding it, you better think long and hard about what you know of God.

Jennifer:
And who you belong to.

Aaron:
And who you belong to. So the key word I want to… practice. So, if you’re practicing sinning and you’re getting better at it, as Jennifer said, you better ask yourself who you belong to. But if you’re practicing righteousness, meaning maybe you’re not that great, like you’re figuring out what it looks like to love well, and to not lash out in anger, and to tell the truth, and to not steal. And all these things that are, those were sins, but now you’re walking in righteousness.

Aaron:
The idea is that you’re not fully righteous currently in this moment. In the spirit you are, but in the flesh, you’re learning how to be righteous. And this was so encouraging to me that like it says, “Whoever practices righteousness is righteous.” It’s almost like if you’re Y you equal X. Like the equation is so powerful that as long as my life is being sanctified, I’m practicing the things that I learn in the word of God, even if I’m not that great at them right now.

Jennifer:
Right. Well, what a beautiful picture of grace that is, that God knows this about us and it’s encouraging to hear that even if we’re just practicing righteousness, we’re righteous. I don’t know, I just feel like that’s encouraging.

Aaron:
It’s super freeing because-

Jennifer:
It doesn’t say be perfect and you will be perfect.

Aaron:
It says practice righteousness. It does tell us to be holy as God is holy, but this is the, you have to look at all the scriptures and it says right here, “Anyone who practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous.” So the life of the believer is… The idea of sanctification is this perpetual growing, perpetual transformation, perpetual changing. We’re practicing. I may have not done so well yesterday with my righteousness, but today I’m a little bit better. And it’s not, again, I’m not committing myself to the father. This is what we do as Christians. We’re moving toward the father, always. With the father moving us towards himself.

Aaron:
So that word practice is just so powerful. So just remember that if you feel like just not where it should be, just know like are you practicing the things that you know of the word of God? That’s awesome. The Bible says, “You’re righteous.”

Aaron:
So let’s do the last one. And this is a really important one. And this is one that a lot of believers, I don’t want to say a lot of believers because I actually don’t know. This is one that I struggled with. Confession, like true confession. And this isn’t like just confessing to confess, but truly being broken over your sin and desiring to confess it for a specific purpose.

Aaron:
And it tells us in James 5:16, therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. For the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. So there’s this power that God gives us because he knows that we’re going to choose sin from time to time, but he says, “I don’t want you to, and I’m going to give you a way out to not have to, and you don’t have to, and you’re no longer a slave and you’re not condemned. And all of these things are simultaneously true in the life of a believer.”

Aaron:
And then he says this, “Confess your sins.” So, one of the gifts he’s given us to help heal us from perpetual sins that we’ve struggled with, from things that feel like they’re so strong in our life is confession. Confession in my life when I started beginning to walk in true freedom was one of the things that you know when the Bible tells us to die to our flesh, confession is a major way to tell your flesh, “No.”

Aaron:
I had to get to a point of saying, “I’m going to do what hurts the most right now. And I’m going to tell my wife.” I’ve had people tell me like, “Oh, I don’t need to. I don’t want to tell my wife because I don’t want to put her through that. I’ll just tell… I already told you so we’re good.”

Jennifer:
Just so everyone hears, if you’ve already done it and you’ve sinned, whether your wife knows or not, or your husband knows or not, you’re already hurting them because you’re one.

Aaron:
Yes. And the Bible tells us to confess and go reconcile with those that we’ve sinned against. So, if as a husband, you’ve done something like pornography or other things that are against your wife, she’s the one you got to go confess to. A lot of men are probably going to be freaking out about that right now.

Aaron:
If you truly want to be healed, if you truly want to walk in the freedom that Christ has given you, this is one of the ways that God’s given us to do it. We confess our sins to one another. It doesn’t just mean go to the… confess to the brother that also struggles with the same thing and you guys never change. It means go to the person that you’ve wronged. Say, “You know what? I’m broken over what I’ve done because it not only hurt you, but it hurt God.”

Aaron:
It breaks his heart that I did that, and it breaks my heart because I want my heart broken over my sin.

Jennifer:
So a husband and wife should be confessing their sins to each other?

Aaron:
Yeah. When those sins are to each other. Now you’re one, so I would imagine even if I sinned and it wasn’t against you, I’m probably going to tell you. But we should be confessing it for the sake of healing not for the sake of just getting the shame off of our chest, which is one of the things that I used to do is I would confess just to get the shame off of me. Which confession does help with getting, removing shame, but the purpose of confession is for healing. I’m telling my flesh, “No, you’re going to die and I’m going to let the spirit live.”

Jennifer:
So now I feel like, I’m going to expand on this just a little bit. When you used to confess, just to get the shame off your chest, like you said, you also would quiet my responses. So if I showed any emotion or if I tried to talk to you about it-

Aaron:
Or control how you-

Jennifer:
You would control the limit of time that we had or you would somehow in some way keep me from doing that. And I feel like when I see this verse and that word healed, so much can be restored through conversation. As you started being transformed in your mind and practicing righteousness and confessing in a way that was really God-honoring, you gave me more time and more space to share how it affected me.

Jennifer:
And because of those conversations, I believe that we were able to be healed in our unity, and in our oneness, and in our relationship because we’re both hearing each other.

Aaron:
Truly reconciled.

Jennifer:
And being truly reconciled. And I think that’s really important to hear.

Aaron:
And also it shows a true humbleness of recognizing that I did wrong you, and not controlling you, and not telling you how to respond, and not stopping you from having emotions. And is me saying like, “I’m just going to say what I did, and I’m going to let you learn to forgive me. I’m not going to try and control it because I did wrong you. And you have a right to your feelings. And I get to trust that you’re going to run to the Lord.

Jennifer:
Now, that’s really good. And I would say on both parties, so husband and wife, they both have a responsibility to provide a safe place and space for that kind of conversation to happen. Because in our flesh we can easily try and control one or the other. And so, I just want to be an encouragement that those kinds of conversations should be happening and it should be a safe place to do it.

Aaron:
And while I totally agree that in healthy relationship that that is cultivated, that you’re like, “Hey, I want you to be able to confess to me.” If you’re a believer and your spouse isn’t saved, or isn’t on the same place, or you just know that they’re not on the same page in the sense of like, “Hey, let’s just make this… I want this to be easy. Tell me the truth.” If they’re not there, we still have a responsibility to, in the Lord, in the spirit, confess with an earnest heart. Without fear of how our spouse is going to respond because we should desire what God wants most. That he would actually change us and heal us.

Aaron:
And so, I think the best case scenario is in your home, you have a safe environment and you guys are with each other, encourage each other, having that open space to say, “Hey, I want you to walk in freedom. So if for whatever reason you gave in and you chose to sin, I want you to come to me so that we can walk through this together, and I can remind you of who you are, and we can encourage each other, and pray for each other, and stand strong together.

Jennifer:
Have these battle versus ready for each other.

Aaron:
Yeah. But even if your spouse isn’t there, it might be harder. Your flesh will feel it a lot more. Ask the Lord to help you earnestly and desire to confess with a completely humble spirit.

Jennifer:
Okay. So just for clarification, this last anchor verse is about confession. And that seems a little backwards because that’s like-

Aaron:
After.

Jennifer:
Something you do after you’ve sinned. So can you just expand on how this will actually help you overcome sin?

Aaron:
Great question. Because on the backend of sin, when we choose to sin, God’s given us a way of killing our flesh. One of the ways is confession because their flesh does not want to do it. We don’t like seeing our sin on other people’s faces, right? So that’s one thing.

Aaron:
The second thing, and this was specific in my life and know it is for other believers, one of the ways that God helped me escape my temptations is reminding me of what it looks like to see your face after I’ve confessed to you what I’m about to do. So, I would sit there and there would be a moment that I think to myself, “Do I want to go do that right now? Do I want to go have to confess to my wife again? No, I do not.”

Jennifer:
So it helps in future tense of-

Aaron:
Yeah.

Jennifer:
… it will help you overcome making that choice to say-

Aaron:
Because if you practice doing it, you’ll know what it feels like because you’ll see the true brokenness that your sin caused in your spouse, or in your friend, or in your other relationships. And if you have the right heart walking in the spirit and desiring what God wants, you won’t want that anymore.

Aaron:
So, when you’re about to make that choice and give into that temptation, you’ll remember, “I don’t want to do that. I don’t want my wife have to hear me say this again. I don’t want my friend to have to know what I’ve done.” So yeah, it’s protective because your flesh learns like, “That doesn’t feel good.” Right?

Jennifer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). That’s good. Thanks for sharing that.

Aaron:
So thanks for joining us on this unique two part series where we talked about seven battle versus for overcoming any sin. We just hope they encouraged you. I want to just quickly recap the topics and the scriptures so that you just have them all in one quick spot.

Aaron:
And number one was temptation. 1st Corinthians 10:1 through 13, the anchor verse was verse 13. Number two is we’re not slaves. That’s Romans 6, the whole chapter. But the anchor verses were verses 17 and 18. Number three was we’re not condemned. And that was Romans, all of chapter 8, but the anchor verse was verse 1.

Aaron:
Number 4 was we have an advocate. That’s also Romans 8:26. Number five was God has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. And the verse was 2nd Peter 1:3 through 4. Number six was we are children of God and we practice righteousness. That’s 1st John 3:1 through 10. And then the last one, number seven is confession, and it’s James 5:16.

Jennifer:
So, we just want to end with prayer and invite all of you to join us.

Jennifer:
Dear Lord, thank you for sending your son to die on a cross so that we can be forgiven of our sins. We are no longer slaves to sin because of what Jesus did for us. Thank you for also sending your Holy Spirit to be our helper so that we can walk in your strength and power, to walk in purity and in holiness.

Jennifer:
You have given us all things that pertain to life and godliness and we pray we would walk in the truth every day. Lord, we pray that when we do sin, we would quickly remember who we are in Christ and that we would repent and walk again in purity and in holiness. You are a good God, you are faithful, and we thank you for freeing us from sin and death in Jesus name. Amen.

Aaron:
Amen. Thanks for joining us again on this two part episode. And if you haven’t left a review, please do so. And also, don’t forget to get the free download, which is datenightconversations.com. We look forward to having you next week.

Aaron:
Did you enjoy today’s show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you’re interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

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