How We Use Self-Improvement to Justify the Root Problem of Sin
The Deceitful Imposter of the Sinful Nature
Justify: [juhs-tuh-fahy] verb. to show a reason or excuse for something done.
Justification.
Mr. J swaggered into my place of business about 9 years ago with the confidence of a quarterback who had just won his second straight Super Bowl.
Fearless. Firm. Assured.
He boldly announced that he could utilize my services as if he were doing me a huge favor. Over the next few days, Mr. J and I spent quite a bit of time together. As I began to converse with him and his story unfolded, I discovered that it was a bit more complicated than it initially appeared. I also found that his role in my life extended beyond business. His story would teach me some life lessons that have been stirring around in me ever since that first encounter in the little consignment shop.
Turns out Mr. J had been appointed to a high-level political position in the state of Alabama. His term was laced with multiple levels of corruption. At the time I began speaking with Mr. J, the FBI and State of Alabama had seized $18.2 million and his million-dollar home, in which I found myself visiting the weeks following our first meeting.
I liked Mr. J a whole lot. His personality was winsome, and he was just fun to be around. He was a storyteller, and it felt strangely like I was spending time with my beloved grandfather as we sat and talked about life, leadership, and lessons learned.
How could someone so enjoyable be in such trouble? There must have been some mistake.
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The Price You Pay?
On my last visit to his home, we had some time to kill, so I mustered up the courage to ask Mr. J some questions.
“Mr. J, how does it feel to know you're going to prison?”
He didn’t bat an eye as he thoughtfully began to answer my question.
“It’s not going to be much of a sentence - a year and a half probably when it’s all done. They’re taking my home, but I’ve got a couple more vacation homes that are nicer than this one, anyway. Hell, I’ll have $6,000 per month coming to me from just my government pension that they can never even touch.”
For some reason, none of that seemed to shock me. What sent my mind reeling over the past few years was the next statement that came out of his mouth.
“It’s just the price you pay for public service.”
The price you pay for public service?!?
As much as I wanted to like Mr. J, I realized that he had taken his corruption and turned it into a heroic act of valor for which he was going to have to pay an unjust penalty. He was claiming, right there in that living room funded by state tax money over a period of many years, that he was A MARTYR of sorts!
Mr. J was justifying his behavior.
UNBELIEVABLE, huh? Who could be so tragically blind?
It Couldn’t Be Me!
A week ago, I was driving home from work after one of the most difficult weeks of my life. I began to ask myself if my experience was a result of my rebellion against God’s ways, so I asked Him if there was anything in my life I should confess and change. Just as if I were talking to one of my kids on an early morning ride to school, I heard Him say,
“Go to bed.”
Go to bed? I ask you what I could change about my life, and you say, “Go to Bed?”
“But I’m a night owl. The only time of the day that I can actually get things done and not be interrupted is late at night. I get so much done.
What would I do without the extra hours in the day? God, it’s just not practical. It’s the way YOU made me.”
“Just go to bed,” He said.
I was up till after midnight that night and until 3 AM the following. I just had too much to do.
Sin is SINGULAR.
We love to make sin plural. The countless number of selfish external behaviors are low-hanging fruit and easy targets for our legalistic and religious self-improvement plan. It gives us something to feel good about when we eliminate one of these sin imposters. I’m not going to name them, you know them well. The taboo habits and attitudes that we try to preach or teach out of our adherents to Christian culture.
But, my friend, sin is not a subset of unhealthy behaviors. Sin is a singular problem. It is a nature that came to life in us when the serpent’s fruit became more enticing than a relationship with the Maker. It bursts outward in behavior, but it’s not the behavior itself; it is the source of our sinful symptoms.
When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear…
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. -Gal. 5:19-23
Because we make sin plural, we have the ability to place ourselves in a hierarchy of sinners (and/or one of righteousness). We feel good about being better than 1,309,256 other people, because our external “sins” are less egregious than those of our neighbor. It gives us our favorite tool in the toolbox of our flesh… justification.
The problem with this method of relating to God is that if we are to embrace it, we must ask the question: “Where is the line between evil and good?” Am I a holy person if I rank below #1,000,000 on the most sinful list, or do I need to reach the level of #5,000,000?
Ridiculous, right? Of course it is!
Singular sin - in other words - the SIN NATURE - makes me just as guilty and bound up as my drunk, sexually confused, grumpy neighbor! As a matter of fact, not only is the sin equal in nature, the SAME SINGULAR SIN that resides in that joker, is the exact sin nature that resides in my heart, because we both inherited it from the same source - REBELLION in the garden.
I tell my kids that they need to get in bed because nothing good happens after 9 PM. And there I go on my long-winded pontification about how my “after-hours” indulgence is somehow different because I get so many “good” things done after everyone else goes to bed.
Justification.
The truth is God called the light Day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. He made our bodies and minds function in a rhythm. My desire to live above that by creating new hours in my day is an attempt to be my own God. That is a pretty cut-and-dry definition of Sin. I think I can do this life thing better by writing my own instruction manual.
JUSTIFICATION.
Now, before you start feeling all guilty about working nights or weekends or whatever, let me just affirm that this is an area of MY life that God is working on. He is incredibly creative in working with each of us, tailoring our approach to our uniqueness. Some folks have to work through the night or through the weekend. It’s not about this one issue, but another singular issue: justification.
Mr. J was a wonderful man with a corrupt heart, no different from the rest of us. The temptation for me was to view him somehow as evil. That makes me feel much better about my white lies and procrastination. However, the gospel truth is, Mr. J and Kevin B are simply products of the first rebellion.
Maybe our target should be to have a heart soft enough to hear the voice of the Lord whispering in our ear. For me, that voice was whispering,
“Go to bed.”
I rebelled.
This morning I awoke to my wife lying her head on my stomach. She spoke softly with a bit of fear in her voice. She’s afraid of how I might react to her thoughts. I hear her force out the words that were hard for her to utter.
“I need you to get up earlier in the mornings.”
Yes, God, I hear you. But, I just can’t seem to make it happen!
The Solution
So, how do we do battle against this raging sin nature that resides in our hearts?
If self-improvement and behavior management are not the answer, then what is?
Paul gives us the answer throughout his writings: We cannot defeat sin by our own efforts. The problem is not just external actions but the very root within, the sinful nature that enslaves us. Paul writes in Romans 7 about this inner struggle, confessing his inability to do what is good, because sin dwells within him.
But here’s the good news that Paul points to in Romans 8 and throughout his letters:
The solution is union with Christ. When we place our faith in Jesus, His death and resurrection, something supernatural (beyond natural ability) happens. The old sinful nature is crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20). We are given a new nature by the Spirit of God who now lives within us (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Paul says in Romans 8:1-2, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” The battle is not won by willpower but by walking in the Spirit and letting Him produce His fruit within us, love, joy, peace, and self-control, replacing the fruit of the sinful nature.
This means daily surrender and reliance on the Spirit’s power, rather than relying on our self-improvement plans. It means dying to self, admitting that justification is a gift, not a reward for better behavior, and living in the freedom of God’s grace.
So the real fight is a spiritual one — one won not by striving to cover up sin, but by letting Christ’s life transform us from the inside out.
In that freedom, the singular problem of sin is no longer our master; we are no longer bound to justification, but we are free children of God, empowered to live in a new way.
God Gave His Life For Us.
To Give His Life To Us.
To Live His Life Through Us.
-Major Ian Thomas
This is the heart of the solution to the problem of the sin nature. It’s not about mustering more effort, hiding our failures, or playing the justification game. It’s about receiving the life of Jesus Himself, who conquered sin and death on our behalf.
When we accept His gift and surrender to His Spirit, His life begins to flow through us, transforming our hearts and empowering us to live beyond the prison of sin. This is the true victory — not in our striving, but in His living.
May we stop trying to fix the symptoms and instead embrace the gift of the Healer! Because in Christ, the singular sin nature is met with the singular source of life.