Not My Problem

Not my problem.  It’s not my problem anymore.

How does it feel to wash your hands of something? To lay it down, to walk away from it, to turn your back on it?  If it’s something that has plagued you, hurt you, or weighed you down, it feels quite good. Good riddance.  Not my responsibility.  Not my problem.

Have you ever said that to your sin?

I said it a couple of days ago.  I said it because those three words flashed into my mind and I claimed them.  And I kept saying them as I thought of what it meant, and the more I said it, the more power those words seemed to have. 

I deal with shame.  Lots of Christians do because in our inmost being we want to please our Savior, but our battle with the flesh feels overwhelming.  We want to live up to the title “Child of God,” but we are convinced that a true child could never struggle the way we do.

Most days, I don’t feel as much like a child of God as I do a child of the same old, deal-with-it-everyday, has-me-in-its-grip sin. So right on cue, at the end of each day, there I am feeling the same old, deal-with-it-everyday, has-me-in-its-grip shame.  God, I did it again today.  I worried, and I lost faith and I focused on the world and I forgot You and I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  

No wonder I don’t always look forward to nightly prayers if this is where my mind tends to go.  How did Mandi fall again today?

And then a day or two ago I said something I’ve never said before: Not. My. Problem.

The words sprang up in me, not flippantly or defensively, but simply – and I began to believe them.  “Not my problem.”  But could it be that if my sin is not myproblem, it is God’sproblem?  Well…yes!  Or wasHis problem, I should say, because the “problem” was crucified on the cross a long, long time ago.  All the nastiness, all the anxiety, all the crud that rolls around in my brain and in my heart, everything not of the Spirit, was put on Jesus’ shoulders when he endured the cross.  In that moment, sin became his problem and ceased to be mine.

Even now I feel a hesitation in writing that.  See, I have a tendency to do what most Christians are very good at – condemn myself (which the Bible very clearly refutes, see Romans 8:1).  We label it as “taking responsibility” or “confession of sin,” something that IS very biblical (1 John 1:9), but instead of confessing sin and letting it go, we wallow in it.  

Maybe I shouldn’t say “we.”  I have seen Christians who truly walk in the knowledge of their sainthood, never questioning their soul’s cleanliness because they know that Jesus’ blood has covered their sins once and for all (Isaiah 43:25).  They are the saints who have not forgotten that salvation is by grace alone (Ephesians 2:3).  They cling to the promise that ALL their sins have been forgiven, past, present, and future. Therefore, to them, wallowing in sin is not only disheartening, it’s pointless.  

I want to live in that truth, not just sometimes, but all the time.

I do believe that it is by grace I have been saved.  I do believe that at an early age I admitted that I was a sinner and I needed Jesus to save me, and at that moment He came into my heart and forever changed the destiny of my soul.  He didn’t just dust me off and set me back on my feet. He completely erased every blemish, every spot, every trace of depravity and replaced it with His own spotless record so that I may appear holy before God.  That is the definition of a saint (from the Greek – to be set apart, sanctified, made holy).  The Bible says it, so why does it feel so counterintuitive to call myself a saint?

Maybe it’s because sin continues to plague us as we work out our salvation.  Paul speaks candidly of his struggle with sin in Romans 7.  Hebrews tells us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” (12:1).  Ephesians reminds us to put on the full armor of God (6:11).  Even as saints, we are constantly at war with sin!

If we are in a war with sin, no way should we turn a blind eye to it and either pretend it doesn’t exist or convince ourselves it doesn’t matter!  “What shall we say, then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (Romans 6:1).  On the contrary, “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:40).  However, there is a difference between recognizingour daily sin struggle and drowningin it.  When the Holy Spirit convicts us (which He does), we can either confess our shortcomings or we can harden our hearts.  

Why are we even convicted of sin in the first place? Because God is a holy God, and because conviction reminds us that we desperately need a Savior.  It reminds us that there is nothing we can do in our own power to overcome sin; we MUST rely daily on the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  So this brings me again to the understanding that SIN itself is not my problem.  How I deal with it, well, that’s my choice.  

I can choose denial.  Walk away from the conviction altogether and continue down a path that leads to darkness and destruction, away from the light of Truth.

I can choose shame.  Satan loves when I choose shame.  He loves to throw the mud we step in right in our faces until we are too ashamed to look up to our Father.  

Or I can choose victory.  “Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25).  Sin is defeated, I am alive, I am no longer a slave.  “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” (Romans 6:6-7).  

Do you believe that?  Do I believe that?  Every single day?

Christ didn’t just die for the darkness of my past or who I was before I accepted him as Savior at six years old.  He already knew every sinful desire I would wrestle with for the rest of my life.  And he loved me anyway.  He forgave me anyway.  He saved me anyway.  “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  (Romans 5:8).  

Oh, how I long to remember that God sees a saint and not a sinner when He looks at me!  He sees a precious child of the Lamb, redeemed by a Savior who shed his blood to make us clean FOREVER!  Jesus willingly went to the cross to give his life so we can live.  “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed…The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”  (Isaiah 53:5, 6).

Jesus took our sin problem, so why in the world do we try to pick it up again?

The next time Satan twists a confession of sin into crushing shame, or whispers the lie that sin will forever have you in its clutches, grab hold of the Truth with all your might.  You are forgiven, you are free.  Jesus has promised this to all who call him Savior.  Because of what Jesus did on the cross, I can look sin squarely in the face and say, “NOT MY PROBLEM!”