4 Chances to Win the Struggle with Sin

Proverbs 7 (This is the New Living Translation adapted by Dave Zirilli to make it read more like a story.)

⁷ I saw some naive young men,
    and one in particular who lacked common sense.
⁸ He was crossing the street near the house of a sinful woman,
    strolling down the path by her house.
⁹ It was at twilight, in the evening,
    as deep darkness fell.
¹⁰ The sinful woman approached him,
    seductively dressed, she had evil plans in her heart.
¹¹ (She was the brash, rebellious type,
    never content to stay at home and do what is right.
¹² She is there often, in the streets and markets,
    selling evil at every corner.)
¹³ She came up to the man, threw her arms around him and kissed him,
    and with a brazen look she said,
¹⁴ “I’ve just gone to church, given my offerings
    and fulfilled my vows to God.
¹⁵ You’re the one I was looking for!
    I came out to find you, and here you are!
¹⁶ Come see my bed! It is spread with beautiful blankets,
    with colored sheets of Egyptian linen.
¹⁷ I’ve perfumed my bed
    with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
¹⁸ Come, let’s drink our fill of love until morning.
    Let’s enjoy each other’s caresses,
¹⁹ for my husband is not home.
    He’s away on a loooooooong trip.
²⁰ He has taken a wallet full of money with him
    and won’t return until later this month.”

²¹ So she seduced him with her pretty speech
    and tricked him with her flattery.
²² He followed her at once,
    like an ox going to the slaughter.
He was like an animal caught in a trap,
²³     awaiting the hunter that would come to kill him.
He was like unaware of the danger, like a bird flying into a snare,
    little knowing it would cost him his life.

²⁴ So listen to me, my sons,
    and pay attention to my words.
²⁵ Don’t let your hearts stray away toward her.
    Don’t wander down her wayward path.
²⁶ For she has been the ruin of many;
    many men have been her victims.
²⁷ Her house is the road to the grave.
    Her bedroom is the den of death.

Think about the progression.

1 -  First, this naive young man with no common sense is wandering around at night.

Remember HALT! Halt means STOP! It is also an acronym for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired. I will add Bored. When we feel these ways, we are most vulnerable to giving in to temptation.

Our FIRST chance to Win the Struggle with Sin: When we feel HALT, we should HALT! STOP! Go home and get refreshed. If we are hungry, eat; angry, process our anger; lonely, call or meet with someone who is an encouraging friend, family member or mentor; tired, rest; or bored, find something constructive and positive to do like helping someone in need.

2 - Then, he sees her and the way she is dressed and he lusts. Lust means to want something that you don’t have, and usually something that is bad for you. You don’t lust after a meal, you hunger for it. You may lust after dessert or after a person that you are not married to or after a fancy car or new video game. You can lust after someone’s power or fame. Usually, lust is selfish. It is wanting what I want and not caring about other people.

We do that, don’t we. We think about what we want, what we wish we had. We play it over and over in our minds and hearts. And our desire grows and grows. Then, we begin to think we need it, deserve it, can’t live without it.

Our SECOND chance to Win the Struggle with Sin: What happens in our minds and hearts is so important. That is why reading the Bible and praying is so helpful. When we read the Bible and talk to God in prayer, our desires get reoriented. God says that He will give us the desires of our hearts.

Proverbs 37:4 - Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Not only will God give us what we desire when you delight in the Lord, but He will also give us new desires, desires that are in line with what the Lord wants for us.

3 - Then, she speaks and invites him to take hold of what he was lusting after. This is key. The temptation comes from the outside, we can’t always control what temptations we face.

(Though many times we can! Avoid Las Vegas, avoid the internet, avoid commercials, avoid bars or nightclubs, avoid certain “friends”, etc. When we know where temptation will be, we can often avoid it.)

But, when we do have to face a temptation that is totally out of context from our thoughts, it is easier to stand strong in the face of that temptation. It stands out as an obvious temptation. It looks and feels like temptation.

If you never worry about money or think about getting rich, seeing someone's wallet on the ground or being given a chance to rob a bank are not really all that tempting. Stealing is wrong and we know it is wrong. So, we can more easily resist.

But, if we have been thinking about it, longing for it, wishing for it, then it presents itself…. "WOW! It really is possible." "I didn’t think I would ever get this chance. What luck!"

We might even think, “God must want me to have this! He gave me this opportunity!"

I have heard this from several Christian married people who were having affairs. They seem so convinced in their mind that God has brought this other person into their lives to rescue them from an unhappy marriage. From the outside it seems obvious that they are deceived or deceiving themselves, but to them nothing could change their minds. They cannot fathom turning away from God, so they bring God into their sin.

Notice in the Proverb, verse 14, the temptress even includes God in her seduction. She has presented her offerings at the temple and fulfilled her vows to God. 

We may think, "So she is right with God. She believes in God, too. She is faithful like me. God must have brought her into my life to help me."

Our THIRD chance to Win the Struggle with Sin: Reject this lie that we all have to face in one way or another: Sin will NOT satisfy our desires or bring us fulfillment.

God will never ask us to sin in order to follow Him.

4 – Then, he sins. We all sin. It happens. We feel guilty. We feel ashamed. We feel sneaky. We hope we can get away with it. And, maybe we begin to feel like we are defined by our sin. Like we are our sin. That we will always be sinful. We can’t control it. It controls us.

That is the battle.

That is the battle that Paul describes in Romans 7:13-25.

It is sin living in me, my sinful nature.

battling against my will, my desire to obey the Spirit of God.

We are fundamentally flawed. Foundationally, we are sinful. We cannot escape our sinfulness. Everything we touch is tainted with it.

It is like when we are soaking wet. Everything we touch gets wet; wherever we sit, we leave a mark; everyone we hug, gets wet.

Our FOURTH chance to Win the Struggle with Sin: Don't get stuck in the cycle of sin. (Sin - Guilt - Shame - Identify with Sin - REPEAT) Break the cycle with confession, repentance, and discipline.

We are not defined by our sins. We are defined by our relationship to Christ. The Holy Spirit is the sign given to remind us that we are God's children. He is the promise that one day we will be fully His.

We also have the Holy Spirit in us. Everything we touch, as Christians, is also touched by the Holy Spirit in us. Just like sin, the Holy Spirit infiltrates every conversation, every relationship, every thought and feeling. We cannot escape the influence of the Holy Spirit in and through our lives. We can try to ignore it. We can pretend it doesn't exist. But, there He is. Always with us. (Psalm 139:7-12)

The Battle of the Christian is Different:

The battle we face is much different than the battle of someone who doesn’t know Christ.

Romans 5:10 describes us as being enemies of God before we received salvation. The struggle we were in then, pitted our own will against God Himself. God desired what was best for us and yet we resisted Him at every turn.

But, as Christians, with the Holy Spirit living in us, the struggle has not stopped. We still struggle. Everyday, we make choices and form habits which guide and shape our lives. But, now our will is to do the will of God. Our deepest desire is to please God, to serve and obey Him.

But, there is a new enemy. Our enemy is sin. Sin through the law tries to bind us, to kill us, and to make us powerless.

That is the message of Romans 5-7.

We are dead to sin, so why would live in it any longer. Don't sin. Don't give any victory to sin. We have already been declared victorious over sin. Death is sin's greatest weapon and death has lost its sting. Christ has victory over death. So in Christ, we have victory over death and sin.

The tools that Proverbs offers to us in our battle with sin are the Bible (Proverbs 7:1-3), discipline (Proverbs 5:23) and wisdom (Proverbs 8).

We have the promise of ultimate victory in death. And, we have the tools to have daily victory through faithfully reading the Bible, developing healthy habits, and seeking after wisdom.

Use these 4 Chances to Win the Struggle with Sin.

1 - Know yourself and when you are vulnerable. HALT! before you are even tempted.

2 - Read the Bible and pray in order to allow God to change the desires of your heart.

3 - When faced with a temptation, reject the lie that sin will satisfy our desires and bring us fulfillment.

4 - After we sin, don't get caught in the cycle of sin. Repent and receive forgiveness.

1 - Christina: A Search for Identity, Love and Acceptance

(This is the first part in a series of blog posts based on interviews I did with 7 adults ages 26-32 about their experience growing up in an American evangelical Christian church setting. All names have been changed to protect their identities.)

Christina was 30 years old. She walked into my office full of smiles. This young woman is one that I had known for over two decades. I first met her when she was a little girl and I was in high school. But, since we hadn't really talked since she was in high school, I wasn’t sure what twists or turns the interview might take.

She seemed happy and confident, more confident, more comfortable than I remembered her ever being.

Christina wanted to know about the interview process, my paper, and the research that I had done already.

She seemed so happy. It took me back a bit.

I knew enough of her story to know that she had had a rough time of it in the years since I had had her in youth group.

Why was she so happy?

I explained to her that honesty was of utmost importance, much more than telling me what she thought I wanted to hear. And then I asked her to just tell me her faith story. Whatever she wanted to tell.

She began the interview by saying, “I was born into this, a world, a Christian setting, a Christian family, a religious background.” It was not something she had chosen for herself. She was raised in a family who always attended church. She also attended a Christian school in her younger years.

When she went to her parents for help, “it was always, 'Oh, did you pray about it?' But, it didn’t really work for me, I guess. When I grew up and got older … I was still going through routines trying to make people happy, just doing the things that I felt like I was supposed to do to try to make everybody feel like I was a good person, just doing things so that people didn’t have anything bad to say about me.”

She was confident that people said bad things about her at church anyway. So, she learned to fake faith, fake the routines, do church, and follow the rules when she was there.

During her high school years, she became less and less comfortable being honest about who she really was. She describes this time as living these “two worlds”.

On one hand, she would act like the “good Christian” people wanted her to be. And on the other hand, she found herself doing things that would have made her parents very unhappy. “When I was twelve years old, I got drunk.”

So, she chose to hide that part of her life from her parents and everyone at church. But, she didn’t feel like this rebellious child was her true self either. She was going between these “two worlds” without being honest with anyone. Hiding one part of her from her parents and another part from her friends.

She never could just be herself.

After graduating from a Christian college, she only attended church occasionally. Sometimes she would come to church just to see a smile on her parents’ faces.

After something bad would happen in her life, “my mom was like, ‘You should come to church’ and ‘You should hang out with these people’ and ‘You should do this’ and [her voice trailed off]. It was right away! Any time something bad happened in my life, it almost seemed like everybody was like, ‘Well, now is the time for you to go to church’ and ‘Now is the time for you to (do this and do this).’ It always had to do with religion and so, me being more a rebellious type of person, my whole life, was like, ‘You’re out of your mind.’ I’ve done that; I’ve tried that. I think the more it was—not forced—somewhat forced, but more of a persuasion, the more I wanted to say, ‘No.’”

The religious people in Christina's life, including her parents, kept thinking that if she just gave Christianity and church another chance, it would provide her the stability and security that it provided for them.

At the end of an unhealthy relationship, she came to realize, “I will never again care what people think or say about me. Because that’s all it ever was. I had to [please him]. I always felt like I had to impress everybody in his life for everybody in his life to like me.”

This was a pivotal time in her search for her identity, her search for herself. She decided not to change herself, contort herself to try to please a man or to please those in the church anymore. She would figure out who she was and just be herself.

The confident young woman I saw walk into my office that morning was the result of that journey.

Christina's mom told her not to waste time crying over losing a man who didn't love and accept her for who she was.

She said, "[Mom told] me that I was better than all of that. It helped our relationship because she learned that trying to force God on me wasn’t going to work. But her having a relationship with me was going to work. That made me learn some lessons in life that I hadn’t already learned. It made me realize who I was and what I wanted.”

Christina had begun to enjoy her relationship with her mom, and her mom really seemed to be trying to understand her and listen to her. Her mom had stopped trying to manipulate her and persuade her to be religious. This shift made all the difference.

Life was no longer about what everyone else expected her to do and to be. Her life had become about who she wanted to be.

This gave Christina the room she needed to be herself and she began attending church when she wanted to and not just to make her parents happy. This changed the way she thought about herself.

“That’s when it started to be me doing things because I wanted to do them not because I felt like I had to do them. It’s a difference, you know. Sad thing about it is it took a lot of pain to get to that point, but when you get to that point, you feel like you are a whole different person.”

She felt like she was finally able to have a relationship with God that fit into her worldview and allowed her to be herself and not try to conform to the image that others wanted her to fit.

Her relationship with her Mom started to flourish.

“It was me being able to talk to her about [Christianity] and for her to better understand who I was. And know where I was, and where my head was, where my heart was. It got to be where I would go to church on my own. Where I would do something because I wanted to do it. I would go to a small group thing. I was doing those things because I wanted to. Because I was able to have those conversations with her. Because I was able to talk to her about stuff.”

Her mother's acceptance of her as she was, for who she was, made all the difference to her. She was finally able to explore her parents' faith, Christianity, from a place of love and acceptance. She felt free to be herself, with all of her doubts and fears and questions and all of her faith and beliefs and hopes.

Tragically, her mother died unexpectedly and everything changed again.

Christina felt so much pain.

She had developed a close friendship with her mother after years of strained relationships, "and then to have that taken away after where I was and where I was headed and the direction I was going. And then, for the simple fact that everybody in the Christian bubble says God does everything for a reason. For Him to do that! Do I blame Him? No, because I can’t. I can’t sit there and say 'Hey, God, guess what? This is all your fault.' When I don’t necess— [interrupting herself]. I’m not saying I don’t believe in God. I do. But, I am not to a point where I can say, 'Oh this is all God’s fault.' I did say that. If he really wanted me to believe in him. Well, then, what is wrong with him because he just kind of really destroyed all of that."

She struggled to describe what she was feeling toward God. She didn't know if she could feel anything toward God.

She thought that she either had to believe that God was close and personally involved in her life and was cruel or that he is distant and uninvolved. She chose the latter.

“Do I believe in God? Yes. Do I believe that God created the world? Yes.” 

But, her belief about what happens after death has changed. “I believe that when you die you die, I guess that’s supposed to mean I am not a Christian, you know. Some people will say that.” 

Previously she said that part of her wanted to believe in heaven and hell that her childhood life is still in her. She asked herself this question, “Do I have the belief that I had growing up? Yes.” 

This may be a case where she has some deep confusion about what she believes. The nostalgic feelings from her childhood, connected to the memory of her mother, may compel her to try to reclaim some part of her childhood faith.

The pain of her mother’s death and the accompanying confusion probably reminded her of all of the reasons she struggled to have faith in the past. There is something real and true there, but people keep spouting these ridiculous cliche's that are devoid of compassion and seem hollow.

So, she went to bars to drink and numb the pain.

In one bar, she built friendships. She reconnected with some people from her past and her current boyfriend. They accepted her, even with her pain. They let her talk about her mom, talk about something inconsequential or not talk at all. They walked through a very painful time with her.

They showed her love and acceptance. The same thing her mother had been able to give her.

She avoided church because she kept hearing things like, “She’s in a better place.” “She’s where she wanted to be.”

But Christina knew differently, “No, she wanted to be here with her family, watching her grandchildren grow up. Sorry! Don’t agree with you! I am glad that you guys have this peace of mind. … It brought a lot of anger back in me.”

The anger and pain have subsided over time, but it was still easy to sense it in her voice as she spoke.

Through all of this pain, Christina believes that she is happier, more confident, and more self-aware than ever. She was reluctant to say it because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings when she said, “I guess it’s hard for me to say, especially to you, cause I grew up knowing you. It is a bad thing to say because it’s not the right thing to say in a Christian world, but I’ve never been happier in my life than I am now. Is that because I stopped going to church? I don’t know.”

For Christina, church was a dangerous place to be herself. She couldn’t be honest about her feelings, her heart, her beliefs, or anything real with those in church. She felt judged whenever she opened her mouth, and often, before she even opened her mouth.

“I know that now that I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t feel like I have to go to church just to make people happy. Where I don’t care if somebody says [to her parents], ‘Wow your daughter is not a very good person because she doesn’t go to church anymore.’ I don’t care. I am who I am.”

Christina was on a search for acceptance and love, a search for her identity and did not find support in church.

So, I asked her, “What can we do different in church? What could the church do to help the next generation better than we helped you?”

Her response cuts to the core of our responsibility as a church, as the Church:

“I think it is important for kid’s not to feel like by making a mistake, the world is gonna end. I think it’s really important, really, really important to have open communication where, I can sit here and tell you, ‘Dave, listen, when I was twelve years old, I got drunk.’ I would want kids who grow up in a Christian bubble but who are also surrounded by the rest of the world to feel like it’s ok for them to be friends with these people and when they’re faced with these situations and they are like, ‘Wow, that looks like a lot of fun, but I don’t know.’ They need to have somebody that they can actually talk to that is going to [care more about the kid than about what the church expects from them]. That isn’t going to respond with [cliche's like], ‘Well pray about it’, ‘Well, ask God what you think you should do.’ I think a lot of choices in my life could have been made if I just sat down and rationalized it out. But, I didn’t have the thought power to rationalize them out at the time.”

She said that she realizes now that she probably could have talked to her parents, but she wanted someone else, another adult who would listen and love and accept her and give her good advice, someone to help her think through her choices and reason it all out.

That’s the mission of the church, isn’t it: to make disciples. To walk along side our children in deep and mutually loving relationships and guide them to become disciples of Christ.

Christina had to go to a bar to feel loved and accepted after her mom died.

Christian cliché’s, Christian "answers", Christian superficiality was killing her from the inside out. She needed real people to really love her.

Church: a place where real people can experience real love and acceptance from other real people because of Christ’s work in their lives.

Real people: people who have experienced grief and comfort, sinfulness and grace, humility and acceptance, love and hope.

This blog post is the first of seven blog posts based on interviews I did for my dissertation. I hope that Christina's story encourages you in some way to draw near to God and receive the love and acceptance and grace that He has to offer. And, then to extend that to those around you.

Everyone wants to be loved and accepted for who they are. 

Dying Eyes: Lessons from a Death Bed

Looking into the eyes of someone who is dying changes a person.

Last week, I visited a woman that I have known for years and love. I asked her if she was afraid to die. "No, not really... Is that weird? I feel like I have done everything I needed to do. I have two great kids. I had a husband who loved me. What else is there to do?"

She seemed a little worried. "Do you think that's normal? Do you think it's the drugs?" She is on a morphine drip to help with the pain.

I tried to reassure her. I told her about my grandmother who passed away a decade ago now. I still remember visiting her in the hospital after a heart attack scare. And, I was worried about her. I asked her if she was ready to die. (Mind you, this was a couple of years before she actually did.) I'll never forget her words.

"Oh, yeah. I don't want to die. But, I am ready. I enjoy each day I have. But, I am ready. I have this peace about it."

And, I could see it on her face. She wasn't scared. She was prepared.

I saw that same peace in this woman's eyes.

My grandma and this woman are comfortable with who they are. They know that God loves them, Jesus died for them, and that they had lived their lives giving and receiving love.

There was no hiding or pretending, no need for superficiality. Their life had been lived and there was no need for lies. The truth was enough. They were dying and the best they could hope for was to enjoy each moment they had left. And, then, trust God with the rest.

I guess we could all learn to do that.

The Necessity of Fear: How to Fear Productively

I have a friend who is afraid of crowds. So, he tries to avoid them. I am afraid of heights, so I limit my time on our roof. My son may still be afraid of the dark, so he avoids it by using a light.

The Face of Fear - Blurry Fear

That is not what we mean when we say, "Fear God." But, in reality, many people hear that. They fear God by avoiding him.

Some try to avoid him by not going to church. Many try to avoid him by not thinking about Him. Often, people even avoid thinking about other things that remind them of God.

The list of avoided topics varies, but how about these for starters:

Death
Meaning of life
Our true self
Sin
Guilt
Shame
Pain

"I just don't want to think about it."
"I don't want to talk about it."

We avoid them and in turn avoid God because we are afraid of God, afraid of the unknown.

God's desire is to be known. He has revealed Himself through creation and nature. He has revealed Himself to individuals throughout history. He has revealed Himself through the Bible. He has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. He continues to reveal Himself through his church (when we let Him by being obedient).

He is hard to avoid. Whether we go to the top of a mountain or the bottom of the ocean, there He is. Whether we go where it is pitch dark or find some uncharted island, there He is.

And, we are told to fear this unavoidable God.

What Does it Mean to Fear God?

I heard this explained over breakfast this morning, in a way that made sense.

If we reject God entirely, God promises to reject us. So this should cause fear, but by trying to avoid thinking about God, we tend to not feel that fear until we are face to face with God Himself after death.

If we accept God, God loves and accepts us. So, what is left for us to fear?

His discipline.
His correction.
His regaining of our focus and attention.
His pruning.
His training.

God loves us. He promises not to leave us to die apart from His love and grace. When we get stuck in habitual sin, it is like a fish who has jumped out of the water and is lying on the shore of the ocean unable to breathe. Struggling to survive. He will not leave us there. He promises to rescue us from ourselves, from sin and from death.

He picks us up and throws us back into the ocean of his grace.

Many times it hurts. Our sin can cause irreparable damage to our relationships, to our view of God or of ourselves. If God exposes our sin, it can cause further damage.

Is it because he wants to hurt us?
No.
It is because He is always loving.
The most loving thing He can do in that instance is to rescue us from our sin. If that hurts, then the pain is worth it for the freedom that comes as a result.

Fear God because he has the love to want to rescue us, the power to rescue us, and will rescue us. His discipline and correction will come in order to save us from being separated from his love and grace. Nothing can separate us from His love and grace. Separation is not an option.

Sometimes it comes in the form of physical death. We are eternally freed from our addictions and sin.

Sometimes it comes in the form of physical sickness, disease or injury. Sometimes it comes in the form of broken relationships. Sometimes it comes in the collapse of systems, governments and nations.

He will do whatever it takes to rescue us from sin and death.

Whatever it takes.
Whatever it takes.

Fear God. He loves you enough to do whatever it takes. Fear God and do what He says, obey Him. Avoid sin. Don't avoid God.

"Here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind." - Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes

Why Christians Must Fear God in Order to Truly Live

I have a friend who is afraid of crowds. So, he tries to avoid them. I am afraid of heights, so I limit my time on our roof. My son may still be afraid of the dark, so he avoids it by using a light.

That is not what we mean when we say, "Fear God." But, in reality, many people hear that. They fear God by avoiding him.

Some try to avoid him by not going to church. Many try to avoid him by not thinking about Him. Often, people even avoid thinking about other things that remind them of God.

The list of avoided topics varies, but how about these for starters:

Death
Meaning of life
Our true self
Sin
Guilt
Shame
Pain

"I just don't want to think about it."
"I don't want to talk about it."

We avoid them and in turn avoid God because we are afraid of God, afraid of the unknown.

God's desire is to be known. He has revealed Himself through creation and nature. He has revealed Himself to individuals throughout history. He has revealed Himself through the Bible. He has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. He continues to reveal Himself through his church (when we let Him by being obedient).

He is hard to avoid. Whether we go to the top of a mountain or the bottom of the ocean, there He is. Whether we go where it is pitch dark or find some uncharted island, there He is.

And, we are told to fear this unavoidable God.

What Does it Mean to Fear God?

I heard this explained over breakfast this morning, in a way that made sense.

If we reject God entirely, God promises to reject us. So this should cause fear, but by trying to avoid thinking about God, we tend to not feel that fear until we are face to face with God Himself after death.

If we accept God, God loves and accepts us. So, what is left for us to fear?

His discipline.
His correction.
His regaining of our focus and attention.
His pruning.
His training.

God loves us. He promises not to leave us to die apart from His love and grace. When we get stuck in habitual sin, it is like a fish who has jumped out of the water and is lying on the shore of the ocean unable to breathe. Struggling to survive. He will not leave us there. He promises to rescue us from ourselves, from sin and from death.

He picks us up and throws us back into the ocean of his grace.

Many times it hurts. Our sin can cause irreparable damage to our relationships, to our view of God or of ourselves. If God exposes our sin, it can cause further damage.

Is it because he wants to hurt us?
No.
It is because He is always loving.
The most loving thing He can do in that instance is to rescue us from our sin. If that hurts, then the pain is worth it for the freedom that comes as a result.

Fear God because he has the love to want to rescue us, the power to rescue us, and will rescue us. His discipline and correction will come in order to save us from being separated from his love and grace. Nothing can separate us from His love and grace. Separation is not an option.

Sometimes it comes in the form of physical death. We are eternally freed from our addictions and sin.

Sometimes it comes in the form of physical sickness, disease or injury. Sometimes it comes in the form of broken relationships. Sometimes it comes in the collapse of systems, governments and nations.

He will do whatever it takes to rescue us from sin and death.

Whatever it takes.
Whatever it takes.

Fear God. He loves you enough to do whatever it takes. Fear God and do what He says, obey Him. Avoid sin. Don't avoid God.

"Here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind." - Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes