Deliberate Sins

12 How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. 13 Keep me from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin.” (Psalm 19:12-13 NLT).

Jeremiah reminds us, “The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9 NLT). It is that realization that causes David to cry out, “12 How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?” And then plead for cleansing. It is also this realization of the inherent evil inclination of the fallen human heart that caused Solomon to write, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do.” (Proverbs 4:23 NLT).

While this “sin lurking in my heart” is troubling and many time surprises me when it springs forth, what I find more disturbing and incredulous is the fact that even as a child of God I am prone to willful sins. Like Paul I find myself crying again and again, “18 I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to, but I can’t. 19 When I want to do good, I don’t. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway . . . 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:18-19 NLT & 24 NIV).

Thankfully there is an answer: 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25a NIV).

What willful sins plague you? David’s prayer is one every believer should start their mornings with: “13 Keep me from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me.” For the believer a deliberate sin occurs every time I decide to take the reigns of my life from the hands of the Master. Here is a terrifying reality. The Bible tells me that those of us who are believers are dead to sin; it has no claim upon us (See Romans 6). I have come to realize that, since sin no longer has rightful control over me, when I do sin it is never because I couldn’t help it rather it is because at that moment I loved the sin more than the Savior. Painful reality. Biblically true.