Eight years ago I took a sexual purity online course, and it was the best Christian teaching I got. It was a daily online course for two months and I loved every day of it. One thing though I disagree with them is that they said many members who do not follow the precautionary rules (such as: move your computer to an open space in the house, or install Internet filtering software, or acquire an accountability partner, etc) fall back into sin even though they were free from it for a period of time. The problem I have with that statement is that I believe a person is only truly free if he is free on the inside through being set free by the power of the Holy Spirit. I think the best way to explain this topic is by talking about what it means to be born-again and what it does not mean.
Many new believers believe that they now have a new holy nature along with their old sinful nature. (I definitely believed that in the beginning, and only after listening to sound Biblical preaching that I came to understand what the Bible really teaches.) New believers believe that because before coming to Christ they were told they have a sinful nature, and after coming to Christ they were told they have a holy nature but from their experience they realize they are still sinning so they conclude, “I must have two natures: a holy one and a sinful one.†This idea is unbiblical because the Bible teaches: before Christ we had a sinful nature, but after Christ this sinful nature had died and now we only have a holy nature. The reason we are still capable of sinning is that we still have physical bodies that get tired, get hungry, and have desires. Another reason we continue to sin for a while after coming to Christ is that sinful behaviour has become a habit in our lives. In other words: we initially continue to sin not because we are sinful in nature and cannot resist sin, but because we are used to live a sinful lifestyle. Let me tell you some examples from my life:
The first incident happened few years after I came to Christ when my sister’s family asked me to go with them to Canada’s Wonderland. I did not want to go to Wonderland because I knew how the girls dressed at such places. After some pressure from my sister and because I had a little nephew and niece I decided to go. The first two hours were horrible! I did not look anywhere except the ground! I kept struggling with God in prayer: I begged Him to help me! After roughly two hours I gave up! I said, “Sorry, Lord, but I really can’t live this Christian life. I am done. I can’t live this horrible life of continuous struggle against myself, against my sinful desire to lust.†So I looked up and the place was so crowded, but what surprised me is that I did not want to lust. I mean, girls dressing sensually were everywhere but I just did not care. I could see girls were around, but to me they were just another person who I had no particular interest in the way they dressed, or looked, or anything else. I felt so free—it was so wonderful!
 
Another time I was praying in my bedroom begging God to help me overcome sin. The next day I was listening to Dr. Charles Stanley of In Touch Ministries and he said something like, “God has given you the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life through you. What else do you need? You already have all you need!†I realized I should be able to live the Christian life, and the next morning as I went to work I decided to test if I was sinning because it was my nature or because sin was a habit in my life. Soon I realized that sin had no attraction to me—I could stop sinning anytime I wanted—but I was doing it because it was a habit in my life.
Here is another example:
In high school my classmates and I were used to telling dirty jokes, but few weeks before graduation I was becoming increasingly overcome by conviction that what I was doing is sinful and it displeases my heavenly Father. (I am not sharing my sins with you because I am proud of them, but because it glorifies my heavenly Father when you read about His wonderful grace that He sent the Holy Spirit to change a sinful man like me.) So after I graduated and started working in the warehouse I decided I would not swear, tell or laugh at dirty jokes again. Days passed, and months passed, until few years later I was receiving some shipment from a UPS driver and another UPS driver came and the first driver told the second driver, “Have you realized this man never swears?†The second driver told him, “I know, I know! He is a good man!†I stopped for a second to see who they were talking about then I realized they were talking about me! I thought back to the high school days and realized stopping this sinful practice of swearing or telling dirty jokes was not a spiritual struggle—this sin had no power over me, and I just did it because it was a sinful habit in my life.
The One who is in you, the Holy Spirit, is much greater than Satan, the spirit of this world (1 John 4:4).
