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Jul 02, 2025 06:00am

Do You Want to Stop Sinning?

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It’s constant, and it starts early. My father was once caring for my 2-year-old sister. He placed her in a high chair and left the room, having forgotten that he had left a jar of peanut butter close enough for her to reach.

He came back to find her hair, her hands, her face covered with a gooey mass. (What would you expect?). But then, Dad said, he made his most foolish error.

“Sandy, did you get into the peanut butter?” he foolishly asked.

She nodded her head from side to side.

“Are you lying to me?”

She nodded, “no” once again.

We start early and our sinning gets worse the longer we live! But God has a plan to deliver us from sin.

THE GREAT PREVENTATIVE

Psalm 19 is one of the most beautiful in Scripture. The first half describes how God is constantly speaking to us through everything He’s made. The second half, he carefully details the comprehensiveness of the Scripture in giving us all we need.

At the end of those two powerful truths, and in light of all that we can see and learn of God every day, he speaks of one final value of these revelations.

In addition, your servant is warned by them, and in keeping them there is an abundant reward. (Psalm 19:11)

If you’ll pay attention, you’ll not only see God, but you’ll see yourself and “how far short we fall of the glory of God.” How sinful we really are, and how to overcome sin.

How do we deal with the magnitude of our sins?

PRAY!

Prayer can do anything God can do, and prayer always brings God into the equation. If you want to sin less, pray the daily prayer of Psalm 19:12-14.

Who perceives his unintentional sins?

Cleanse me from my hidden faults.

Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins;

do not let them rule me.

Then I will be blameless

and cleansed from blatant rebellion.

May the words of my mouth

and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable to you,

Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

Pray against HIDDEN SINS

Our hearts are filled with all kinds of iniquity. The Spirit has come to live within us, but we still have the residue of our humanity. Potential sins lurk like a tiger waiting to pounce, and the world and the devil trigger the temptations constantly. The Psalmist’s remedy begins with prayer.

He takes occasion hence to pray against sin. All the discoveries of sin made to us by the law should drive us to the throne of grace, there to pray. (Matthew Henry)

The Psalmist prays, not that God would just forgive, but “cleanse.” “Go deep, Lord, and root out these hidden sins that will trip me up and lead me to great error. Don’t stop on the surface level. Go to the source.”

Pray against WILLFUL SINS

But the worst type of sin is when we know what we’re doing, and we still choose to sin. David prays a separate, twofold prayer.

1. Keep (me) from willful sins and don’t let them rule (dominate) me.” We should pray for Divine help and protection … constantly. Jesus told us to continually pray, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil (or, the “evil one”) (Matthew 6:13). We should be asking God to aid us and deliver us in our battle against sin. We cannot do it without His help.

2. “Go deeper, Father, to the root of our sins. God to our thoughts and meditations and the words that spring from our lips. Touch me at the heart level so that sin is stopped before it starts.”

His final prayer is that, at the deep level, everything will be “acceptable” to the One who is our “Rock and Redeemer.”

You’ll never have a sinless life until heaven. But do you want to have an increasingly holy, godly life, free from the enslavement of sin? You can. But you cannot do it by your own strength. You must enlist the aid of your Savior, which comes through unceasing communion with Him.