I am continuing to read John Piper’s little book When the Darkness Will Not Lift and sharing some of my own struggle with melancholy. In chapter 4, Piper turns to the issue of sin in our lives and how it can rob us of our joy in God. He writes,

Sin destroys joy. It offers deceptive delights, but it kills in the end. In dealing with our sin we can make two mistakes. One is to make light of it. the other is to be overwhelmed by it. In the fight for joy we must take it seriously, hate it, renounce it, and trust Christ as our only Savior from its guilt and power…If we want the joy of seeing and savoring God in Christ, we must not make peace with our sins. We must make war.

I have a very good memory of those days when I would become completely overwhelmed with my sin. I knew the facts of the gospel, but I had no idea how to apply it to my life. Rather than confessing and repenting, I would panic, resolve to do better, realize that I couldn’t, and determine that being a Christian was just something I couldn’t do. Even though I was in church every time the doors were opened, I still did not have a good grasp of what it means to have your sins covered by Jesus’ blood.

Another struggle I’ve had is with cherished sin. A cherished sin is one that you may confess, but you are very far from renouncing. It’s one of your favorite things to do. You enjoy it and it really doesn’t hurt anyone, so it’s alright. Wrong. The Bible has a lot to say about pet sins and how they can destroy us. Piper writes that “one of the reasons that some people suffer from extended times of darkness is the unwillingness to renounce some cherished sin.” Cherishing sin WILL kill your joy in Jesus. It is impossible to enjoy a relationship with the One who died for your sins while you are enjoying sin!

I know a lot about being overwhelmed with and cherishing sin. I also want to share how to fight sin so that I can maximize my joy in Jesus.

First, I have to confess my sin to God. “Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long” (Psalm. 32:2-3). If I keep silent about my sin, if I cherish it, then I can expect to “groan” with depression. The Holy Spirit in me will see to it that I am miserable until I confess that sin. It is better to be a woman “against whom the Lord counts no iniquity” than to be a groaning woman. Not only that, it honors God when I confess.

One thing I had to learn was that there isn’t anything else for me to do after my confession. Jesus has done all of the work to remove my sin from me, and it is removed completely, as far as the east is from the west, cast into the depths of the sea. He took my sin upon himself and absorbed all of God’s wrath. For me to attempt to make restitution of some kind is an insult to Him and does not honor God.

Jesus’ work on the cross even covers my hidden sins, the ones I don’t even know about. Psalm 19:12-13 says, “Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me!”

A second thing to do is confess the sin to someone else. I have found that getting the sin out in the open with another person who knows me well and whom I can trust works amazingly to kill the power of sin over me. If I’ve offended someone else, then that is the one to whom I need to confess and ask forgiveness. Joy comes relatively quickly after I’ve confessed and apologized to someone I’ve offended.

Piper ends this chapter with a short discussion of Satan’s role in our times of darkness. He writes that “there are three comforts in the face of Satan’s attacks:

1. Satan cannot do anything apart from God’s sovereign permission (see Job 1:12; 2:6; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Luke 22:31-32).
2. The decisive blow against Satan’s destructive power was delivered by the death of Jesus for our sins (see Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14; Romans 8:33-34).
3. Deliverance from Satan’s oppressing, darkening, and deceiving work in the life of the Christian comes most often by the power of truth, and only rarely by exorcism (2 Timothy 2:24-26).”

With that said, I need to apologize to everyone for those two posts yesterday. In those posts you can read all the impurities of my heart just waiting for circumstances (like a broken heat pump) to stir them up and bring them out. I was grumbling, complaining, making fun of Mr. Fix-It and repairmen in general, ungrateful, selfish, and harsh with words. What’s worse is that those posts only encourage readers to feel and act the same way…just read the comments.

I’ve debated deleting the posts, but I won’t. I think I need to keep them up as a reminder to myself of the influence of blogs and the responsibility I have to stay focused on my goal of glorifying God and encouraging others with my blog. They can also serve as a reminder to readers that this woman is far from perfect.

I hope you will forgive me.

Did you know that you can read this book online?