Caused to Sin?

Copyright 2006 by Shea Oakley

All rights reserved

"People, circumstances, etc. are never the cause of failure. Self’s reaction to them is the cause and the one problem to be dealt with." Miles J. Sanford

Others can never "cause" us to sin, even when they have sinned greatly against us. When we respond to being hurt by another by hurting them we sin and are responsible for that sin. The problem is that we do not tend to fully rely on God for our solace when wounded by others. Instead we often take matters into our own hands. The major goal when choosing how to react to being sinned against should be to seek understanding for the sinning party and divine strength to bear the wound, not to use that wound as an excuse to do wrong. Then we must trust God for our legitimately needed healing.

In a fallen world it is impossible to evade being hurt by other people. Such injuries are completely unavoidable. Also unavoidable is our own inborn tendency, consciously or otherwise, to injure those people ourselves. It is something we are born with and the spiritual re-birth that makes us Christians does not automatically banish the propensity to hurt back. The popular contemporary term for a believer is "wounded-healer". Unfortunately sometimes a better description for us might be "wounded-wounder".

It often seems as if the last thing we want to do at the moment we have been offended is seek God for help in responding. The flesh immediately puts forward its own agenda and it is powerfully tempting to follow its prescription for dealing with the offender. If someone punches me in the nose my first impulse is not likely to be to pray to the Lord for wisdom in understanding why that someone would do such a thing. My first impulse is to punch back. If I follow that impulse the world will likely tell me I am acting in legitimate self-defense. As my newly-bruised nose throbs "legitimate self-defense" sounds pretty good to me! But Jesus might well tell me to turn the other cheek in such a circumstance .My flesh, of course, wants nothing to do with the concept. The call of the Spirit speaks softly and my sense of grievance is screaming. Often I never hear God’s call at all.

But part of the problem is that I do not really want to hear it.

Part of attaining to spiritual maturity is deciding that no matter how urgently the flesh is speaking to me I will choose to listen for the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit before I react. This is by no means easy. Some people never learn to do this and, at best, live in spiritual defeat all their Christian lives. It is initially far easier to heed the flesh than the Spirit. This is true with any temptation, not just the one to take revenge. Ask any addict. Resisting sin is difficult. However the long-term results of not resisting lead to death and that death is far worse than the pain involved in choosing to flee temptation. Experiencing the short term gratification of giving into it is never worth the aftermath, never.

Beyond this there is a better reason not to fight fire with fire. Our best motivation for seeking God’s solution to injury is simply that we want to be lovingly obedient to Him. We perhaps love God best when we strive to emulate His beloved Son. This is the call of the Spirit in our lives, to truly do what Jesus would and to do it out of love for Him. This is greatly pleasing to God and, make no mistake, He will make up for whatever loss we sustain in taking the harder road of Christ-likeness. It may be in this life or it may be in the next, but our Lord will surely wipe away our tears and heal every wound we have sustained.

That assurance is a powerful weapon in the arsenal of a Christian who has just been punched in the nose.