The desire of every genuine, blood washed child of God should be to live in constant communion with the Savior. To do so, we must have power over sin, because sin robs us of that communion. God so desires us to have victory over sin He has provided us with three agents to defeat sin in our lives. He has equipped us with the Word of God, the interceding Savior, and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
In Psalm 119, the Psalmist indicates the power over sin the Word of God gives in a believer's life. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." The Christian who give prominence to the Word of God will have a first line defense against sin. The Word of God alone is sufficient to support us in our battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Because of God's great concern for us, He has also given us the Great High Priest in Heaven who also supports us. "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." What a majestic thought that our Savior is praying for us as we battle against temptation and sin! We have the Word of God and our interceding Christ, but God still provided a third agent to aid us in our spiritual walk. That is the blessed Holy Spirit who lives in every true believer. He did so "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." How He loves us and wants us to walk with Him!
In spite of God's wonderful provision, we still give in to the flesh and commit sin. That breaks our fellowship with Him. We should know the grave danger we put ourselves in when we sin. These dangers are found in the first letter of John, the epistle of fellowship.
God is light, and as light He gives guidance to His children. When we lose fellowship with Him that light is darkened. "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth," 1 John 1:6. Many of us grope around in life, making one bad decision after another because sin has blinded us from God's direction. Broken fellowship also means lost joy. John wrote his letter of fellowship, "that your joy may be full." David's experience in Psalm 51 is that sin cost him the joy of his salvation. Experiencing the love of God in our lives is another casualty of sin, according to 1 John 2:5. If we are to show the love of God to a lost and dying world, we must walk in communion with Him.
Prayer is the life-line of the believer. We believe that God changes things in response to prayer. Confidence in prayer, however, depends upon fellowship with the Lord (1 John 3:19-22). Sin is disobedience, and it robs us of that confidence that our prayer will be effective. Just as the believer who walks with Christ has confidence in prayer, that believer also will have confidence when Christ returns to receive us to Himself (1 John 2:28, 4:17). That confidence will be changed into shame for the Christian who does not live in fellowship with Christ.
John wrote this to motivate us to walk with the Lord and avoid sin. He said, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not." But even with God's three provisions to keep us from sin, and the motivations we have to avoid sin, we still sin.
For this reason, God has given us an incredible corrective measure in 1 John 1:9. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." The "if" places the responsibility on us. God will fulfill His part if we do our part. He forgives if we confess. Confess does not mean to list our sins to God. He knows what they are! Confess means to say the same as or to agree. When we truly confess, we agree with God about our sin. Sin is horrible and deserves judgement. When we side with God against ourselves, He forgives and cleanses. Fellowship is restored with all of its blessings. May we walk with Him incessantly, and when we fail may we immediately seek restoration.