Okay. Great! I'm going to assume if you have questions, you'll ask them.
So, part of the reason Christians struggle with sin so much is just plain ignorance. They don't know who they are in Christ and what they have in him and don't appropriate by faith what is theirs in him; they don't make "withdrawals" on the spiritual inheritance in their divine "bank account."
Is this you? In the face of temptation, are you aware of the truth of
Romans 6:6 and following the command of
Romans 6:11?
Another possible issue contributing to the believer's failure to resist sin is their starting point with God, their view of what it is to be in a relationship with God. The First and Great Commandment God gives to us all isn't to stop watching inappropriate content, or to go to church on Sunday, or even to read the Bible and pray, but to love God with all of one's being. (
Matthew 22:36-38) This is where the whole Christian life is supposed to start; it's out of love for God that the Christian's walk with God is supposed to flow. God intends that His children go to church, study His word, forsake Self and sin, because they
love Him. Paul the apostle even goes so far as to say that if love - first of all for God and then for others - is not the basis for all that the Christian knows, says and does, what they do is
useless:
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Too often, Christians rely on motives of fear, or obligation, or religious pride, instead of love, in their walk with God. Particularly fear - fear of God's anger and punishment - becomes the basis for the obedience of Christians to God's commands. But, the apostle John rules out fear as a proper motive for Christian living:
1 John 4:16-19
16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
19 We love, because He first loved us.
Fear is not powerful enough, it serves the wrong thing ultimately (Self), and cannot be accepted, or employed, by God, therefore, as a basis for Christian obedience. Only love - God's holy, unwavering, powerful love - can move us into the crucified life that is the normal, victorious Christian life.
We are creatures powerfully moved by desire; generally, we do those things we desire to do (unless forced by some circumstance or power to do otherwise). God intends that our desire for Him, our deep longing and passion to know and enjoy Him in intimate communion, our
love for Him, should fuel our walk with Him, overcoming all other things we do, or might desire to do.
Such a love for God, though, arises out of one knowing and being fully persuaded, deeply convinced, of God's love for oneself. "We love Him because He first loved us." Only when we "know and have believed God's love for us" do we begin to love Him as we ought and thus to forsake those things that infringe on our love-relationship with Him.
So, let me ask you: Do you know, really know, that God loves you? Are you thoroughly convinced, deeply persuaded, of just how enormously, and perfectly, and powerfully He loves you? If you are, when you are, it will naturally prompt in you a love for Him.
Without this deep passion for God, without a keen and growing love for Him, you lack the only motive for walking with Him that actually works, that will move you away from sin and toward holy, joyful fellowship with Him consistently and effectively.
Does this make sense so far?