The Real Reason You Choose Sin — And How Believing God's Love Changes It

I want to ask you something. Think back to the last time you gave in to your flesh — the last time you chose what you knew you shouldn't. What were you trying to get? What were you going after?

Because here's what I've come to see in years of ministry: every time a person chooses sin, there is something they are trying to obtain. And underneath that choice is a belief — usually unspoken, maybe even unrecognized — that God does not love them enough to give them that thing.

That's not a willpower problem. That's a love problem.

God's will is better than anything you could plan for yourself.

Before we get to the garden, let's talk about the will of God for a moment — because it connects directly to why people choose sin.

I didn't want to go on television. When God started dealing with me about it, my response was straightforward: "I do not want to do this." I hated the idea. I thought about myself, what I liked, what I was comfortable with. I wasn't thinking about the people on the other side of the screen at all.

But I did it. And today, I have joy doing it — more fulfillment than I could have manufactured on my own. God knew what would bring me the most satisfaction before I knew it myself.

Let me put it like this: my wife once told me she wanted to do a song in church by an artist named Big Daddy Weave. My reaction? "We are not doing a song by anybody named Big Daddy Weave." She asked me to just listen. I did. My response after? "I think we're going to do a song by a fellow named Big Daddy Weave."

If my wife can know me better than I know myself, how much more does God — who has been thinking about your life since before He formed the earth — know what would bring you the greatest joy?

You are not God's science experiment. He is not ordering you around to prove He's in charge. He has a plan for your life that is better than anything you could have dreamed up for yourself.

The pearl is worth finding. Don't quit after 15 minutes.

Jesus compared the will of God to a pearl of great price — and to a treasure hidden in a field. When someone finds something worth that much, they don't give up if it takes longer than they expected. They keep going because they know what's waiting.

If someone told you there was $1,000 hidden somewhere in your house, you would not spend 15 minutes looking and call it done. You'd tear the place apart. You'd move furniture. You'd keep at it because you want what's there.

That's how you should approach knowing God's will for your life. Not as a duty. As a pursuit. Because the God who is completely and absolutely in love with you has prepared something — and it is worth more than anything you've been holding on to.

But you will only pursue it that way when you genuinely believe He loves you. Because if you still think He's going to give you the junk job, you're not going to press in. You're going to keep the conversation short and safe.

The serpent's oldest trick is convincing you God is holding out on you.

Now here's where it all connects. Go back to the beginning. Genesis 3:

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'" … Then the serpent said to the woman, "You shall not surely die. For God knows, in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Genesis 3:1, 4–5 (NKJV)

That's the setup. The enemy didn't come at Eve with a frontal attack. He came at her with a question about God's character. He suggested that God was withholding something good from her — that God knew the fruit would benefit her and was keeping it out of reach out of jealousy.

That lie hasn't changed in thousands of years. It's the same one playing in the back of your mind every time you're tempted. God won't give you this. You'll have to get it yourself.

Every sin is rooted in not believing God loves you enough to provide.

Walk through it with me:

Why do people lie? Because they don't believe God loves them enough to protect them when they tell the truth. You lie to your boss to keep your job because you don't believe God is big enough to cover you if you're honest — or to give you a better job.

Why do people steal? Because they don't believe God loves them enough to provide what they just took. If they trusted His love, they'd trust His provision.

Why do people commit adultery? Because they don't believe God loves them enough to bring fulfillment in their marriage. They go looking outside because they've already concluded God isn't going to meet that need inside.

Why do people promote themselves through pride? Because they don't believe God loves them enough to promote them through humility. If they really trusted that God would lift them up in due time, they wouldn't need to blow their own horn.

The pattern is consistent. Every time you reach for something outside of God's way, you are operating from a belief — conscious or not — that God is not going to come through for you. That His love isn't big enough. That you have to secure it yourself.

What if Eve had believed the love of God?

Think about this: what if Eve's first response to that serpent had been this? "If God didn't give it to me, I don't need it. And if I wanted it and it was good for me, He loves me enough to give it to me. I don't have to take it. I don't have to compromise my relationship with Him to get it."

That's it. That's the whole answer. Not willpower. Not discipline. Not white-knuckling through temptation. A settled confidence in the love of God — that He is for you, that He will provide for you, that you do not have to go around Him to get what you need.

The Scripture says that those who pursue riches are pierced through with many sorrows. But the blessing of the Lord — that makes rich and adds no sorrow with it. There's a version of everything you're chasing that God can give you clean, whole, and without the grief that comes when you take it the other way.

You don't have to provide for yourself what God has already promised to give you.

Here's the bottom line of this whole series: you do not have to obtain things by your own effort, your own compromise, your own hand. Because God is in love with you and will freely give it to you.

When you truly begin to believe that — when the love of God stops being a thing you know about and becomes a conviction you live from — sin stops being so attractive. Because you can look at every temptation and say, "I don't need to take that route. If it's worth having, God will give it to me. And if He won't give it to me, it's not worth having."

That is not a sentence of restriction. That is the most freeing truth you will ever grab hold of.

Make a decision today: it's not enough to know about His love. Press into it. Feed on it. Let it change the way you see every situation you face. Because when it does, you will find that God is not your problem — He is your answer.

Fight To Win.