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How Can I Limit My Opportunities To Sin?
Sin is what happens whenever you have the desire to do something that displeases God, plus opportunity to do it, plus action that displeases God. So, if you truly desire to defeat the devil, one thing you can do is to do your best to limit your opportunities to sin. Although you cannot eliminate every opportunity Satan gives you to sin, you can do some things to seriously limit your opportunities. Consider a few things that can be done.
1) Cut off what you struggle with. Jesus believed in taking drastic measures to avoid sin because He knew the severe spiritual consequences of sin. In Matthew 5:29-30, Jesus says that it is better to cut off your hand or pluck out your eye to avoid going to Hell. While physical mutilation would not actually eliminate many temptations, Jesus is showing that Hell is so terrible that you should cut off what you must to avoid going there! So, for instance, if you cannot defeat the temptation of lust through other means, cut off the television, the internet, the magazine subscriptions, etc. to no longer give you that opportunity to sin. Be bold enough to take the appropriate measures to cut off whatever it is you struggle with so that you limit your opportunities to sin.
2) Don’t make plans to fulfill the desires of your flesh. Some people live like Christians most of the time yet leave the door open to commit some sin. Ordinarily, they try to avoid sin. However, if the right opportunity came along, they would take it. Don’t be like this! Romans 13:14 directly instructs that you do not make plans to gratify the desires of the flesh so as to fulfill its lusts. Don’t think that any opportunity to sin is too good to pass up. Instead, determine that your life really is about serving Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:20; 5:24). Shut the door to sin. Look for opportunities to serve Christ rather than opportunities to please yourself!
3) Avoid evil companions. It may be that you do pretty well limiting your opportunities to sin and resisting temptation whenever you are by yourself. However, maybe you know that there are certain people who will cause you to be tempted. Being around them will often present some kind of opportunity to sin that would be harder for you to resist than normal. 1 Corinthians 15:33, for example, warns that bad company corrupts good morals. Though you will always be around evil people as you live in the world, you should avoid putting yourself around people you know will make sin difficult for you to avoid (Proverbs 1:10-19).
4) Stay away from every kind of evil. Maybe this sounds like an oversimplification. But, limiting your opportunities to sin does not have be extremely difficult. If you study God’s word, you will know what is evil and what is good. Then, if you really want to avoid sin, you will know to stay away from those things that are evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 instructs you to put everything to the test and then avoid every kind of evil, while clinging to everything that is good. It is that simple. To the best of your ability, study God’s word diligently and then determine you will stay away from every kind of evil (Psalm 119:10-11). Don’t see how close you can get to it without sinning. Just stay away from it – recognizing how dangerous it really is!
While there are other strategies you can use to avoid sin, limiting your opportunity to sin is a simple one you must not overlook. Do what you can to evaluate your life and cut down the number of opportunities you have to sin against God. And, don’t be afraid of taking steps that may seem drastic to others. While you will not be able to eliminate every temptation (since you must still live in this sin-filled world and interact with sinful people), you can cut down on many needless and self-inflicted temptations!