When I am asked how a person who loves God can still fall into sin, I do not have to look far. I look inward. I see the same struggle the apostle Paul described when he said, “For what I am doing, I do not understand… For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice… O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:15–25, NKJV) That passage is not abstract theology to me. It is an autobiography. I love God. I desire to obey Him. Yet I still feel the pull of my flesh. I still see pride rise in me. I still see selfishness, fear, and old patterns trying to reclaim ground. The tension is real. Loving God does not remove my capacity to sin; it exposes the war that is already inside me.
Scripture is painfully honest: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8–10, NKJV). My greatest danger is not weakness — it is pretending I am strong. “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12, NKJV). The moment I trust my own heart, I step onto unstable ground, because “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9, NKJV). Sin rarely crashes into my life all at once. It grows quietly. James explains the progression: “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” (James 1:13–15, NKJV)
I see that process in myself. It begins with a thought I entertain too long. A resentment I rehearse. A compromise I excuse. Scripture warns me to guard my interior life because “out of it spring the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23, NKJV). When I neglect that vigilance, I drift. And drift is dangerous. “We must give the more earnest heed… lest we drift away” (Hebrews 2:1, NKJV). Even the strongest men in Scripture were not immune. David loved God, yet he fell into adultery when he stopped watching his heart (2 Samuel 11:1–4). Solomon began with wisdom and ended with divided loyalty (1 Kings 11:1–4). Their stories are not there to shame me; they are there to warn me. Pride truly does go “before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18, NKJV).
The flesh is not passive. Paul tells me plainly: “The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh… so that you do not do the things that you wish” (Galatians 5:16–17, NKJV). That conflict does not mean I do not love God. It means I am still in the process of being transformed. But here is the mercy: the Christian life is not defined by falling — it is defined by returning. When I sin, I am not cast away. I am called back. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, NKJV). I come to Christ not as someone pretending strength, but as someone admitting need. Scripture invites me boldly: “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15–16, NKJV).
Even Peter — who loved Jesus deeply — denied Him. Yet Christ prayed for him: “I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:31–32, NKJV). After Peter failed, Jesus restored him (John 21:15–17). That restoration is my hope. Failure is not the end of the story when repentance follows. So my task is not pretending to be sinless. My task is vigilance and dependence. I must watch and pray (Matthew 26:41, NKJV). I must submit to God and resist the devil (James 4:7, NKJV). I must discipline my body (1 Corinthians 9:27), hide God’s Word in my heart (Psalm 119:11), flee temptation (2 Timothy 2:22), and put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:10–18). And yet even with all of that effort, my ultimate confidence is not in my discipline. It is in grace. “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:12–14, NKJV).
I fall because I am human. I rise because Christ is faithful. A person who loves God can fall into sin because love does not erase the battle with the flesh. But love does change what happens after the fall. I grieve my sin. I confess it. I return. I run again with endurance, “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1–2, NKJV). That cycle — fall, confession, restoration, growth — is not proof that I do not love God. It is evidence that His Spirit is still working in me. And I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord — that the story does not end with my weakness. It ends with His mercy.
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