If Habitual Sin Remains Unchallenged

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Can a true believer continue in habitual sin? God’s Word provides stark warnings about the changes that should be present in the disciple’s life.

1 John 3:4-10

Do You Practice Sin (3:4-6)?

  • There is a difference between committing sin and practicing it (3:4).
  • Sin is a defiant declaration that your desires are more important than God’s laws (3:4).
  • Remember: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1:8-9).
  • Sin will be a consistent struggle, but it should not be an unchallenged habit (3:5-6).

Do You Align with the Enemy (3:7-8)?

  • Satan’s great deception in the Church is that your personal righteousness is trivial (3:7).
  • When we sin consistently, we align ourselves with patterns of an enemy who is determined to destroy us (3:8).
  • Our defiant disobedience is an attempt to resurrect the works of Satan that Jesus came to put to death (3:8).

Have You Been Born of God (3:9-10)?

  • A request for forgiveness should create a rejection of the things for which we needed to be forgiven (3:9).
  • Someone who has been truly born of God should not display sin as the prevailing pattern of one’s life (3:9).
  • The reborn individual will progressively and predominately live rightly before God and beside others (3:10).

If habitual sin remains unchallenged, then one’s claim to salvation should at least be reconsidered.