Believing Christians Commit Sin Because

¶ … believing Christians commit sin because some form of temptation. The temptation arrives on a mental level; internally. When a Christian acts on this temptation and succumbs to it, the act is externalized. The goal of attempting to deal with temptation is to maintain the temptation in the internal arena without letting it degenerate into action. As for temptation, this can also occur in a variety of categories; temptation can be a clear and slow process, where the believer has some time to think about his or her actions, or it can be a sudden, unexpected temptation, which is much easier to turn into action because of its subtlety.

In the case of my taxes, the temptation falls into the former category, where there is time to think and consider before letting the temptation become an external action. Part of the strength of this particular temptation lies in the idea that nobody is likely to notice if I do not complete the tax return with my full information. In addition, my time is limited, and it would be much easier and less time consuming to simply let some of my declarations fall by the wayside.

As a human being, I can compare this temptation to Satan's temptation of Even in the Garden of Eden. By his deceitful assertions, he convinces even that the consequences of her actions will not be as horrifying as God had indicated. In Genesis 3:4 he says to her "You will not die," and continues to lie by telling Eve that God does not want them to be like him. Eve however appears to be unaware of the fact that they were made in God's image, and therefore is already like him. But the temptation of being greater than she is too great and she takes the fruit.

When applying this to my tax situation, the temptation is that I could get away with more than I am entitled to. Christ addresses this very issue in Luke 20: 25, where he says, "…render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." In other words, the government is entitled to taxes, and to conceal any of my earnings or receipts from them is illegal, and hence sinful. While I am tempted to think that nobody will find out about it, one of the things I should remember is my relationship with God, which is of great importance to me. If I give in to temptation, I damage my relationship with God, like Adam and Even did. By externalizing the temptation, they sinned. If I were to give in to the temptation of cheating on my taxes, I would also externalize the thought to do so, and therefore sin in both thought and action. This would damage my relationship with God.

The temptation is however very strong, driven by the dual factors of time and that nobody would probably find out. On the other side of the argument, the potential damage to my life as a Christian is a strong driving factor to not let the sinful thought become external and enter into the reality of my life.

In his article, Andrew Womack provides some good strategies to deal with temptation. The first and most important strategy is to fight the temptation internally before it can become external. According to Womack, one of the strongest defenses the Christian has is his or her true identity in Christ. Knowing who I am in Christ provides me with strength to fight the temptation. Together with my knowledge of the Bible, I can then keep form externalizing a temptation to do what I know is wrong.