The Road Traveled
A Christian based podcast geared to men to be able to take the bible and make it applicable to each man's life on the road he travels.
The Road Traveled
Ep 9: Sin Loops, How Do We Break Them?
We wrestle with Romans 7:15 and why we keep doing what we hate, then map out how sin loops mirror habit loops and how small, intentional steps shift us toward freedom in Christ.
• Romans 7:15 as the honest confession of the heart
• sin loop explained through cue, action, reward
• cussing, road rage, envy, overeating as real triggers
• replace don’t resist as a practical strategy
• baby steps and environment shaping change
• responsibility over excuses and decide over try
• cutting off what causes sin with clear boundaries
• prayer, scripture, community as sustaining power
• hope and growth without perfectionism
• closing prayer for strength and renewal
If you haven’t trusted Jesus, invite Him into your life and ask Him to forgive your sins
Welcome to The Road Travel, a Christian podcast for Minute, where real faith meets real life. Through honest conversations and personal stories, we help you apply God's word to your everyday journey by sharing the road when you travel. Whether you're walking through challenge, change, or calling, this is your road. And you don't have to travel it alone. Now, let's take the next step with your host, Aaron Degler and Alan Hugator.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome back to the Road Travel. Thanks for taking a little time to join us today. I'm your host, Aaron Degler, along with our host, Alan Hugator. We are here today to share a little bit about the road we've traveled with maybe some funny stories from time to time, some wisdom, some not so smart things we've done, and some knowledge we've gained along the way, and share a little scripture with you as we navigate the road that we're all on, which is called life. And we hope to share that with you. Today we're going to start with a little scripture from Alan. Him and I have talked about it, and we've had to reread it a number of times because it can be kind of confusing. And so we thought we'd share it with you. Alan probably read it a couple times because, as he and I did, we read it and had to read it again and then again and then talk about some more and then read it again. So I'll just let Alan start off.
SPEAKER_02:It probably will be babbled a little bit through this, but uh I'll try to do the best I can. It says we're going in here to Romans chapter 7, verse 15. Didn't I say Paul was speaking here? Paul was speaking here in Romans again. Okay, and he starts by I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. Think about that in your life. How many times make you understand? But like he said, I do not understand what I do because for what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. Well, we hate sinning, right? That's what he's referring to. He hates sinning against the Lord. He hates it. I hate it when I sin against the Lord. You know? And sometimes it's repetitive that I've done this sin and I've done this sin, and I hate it. And I don't understand why I repeated it. Because repentance was spoken to me one time. It's when you hate the sin so bad that you will never do it again. I'm starting early on a story, but one time I got thinking about that and I said, I mean, I love both my parents, but it really hurt me when I said something that hurt my mother's feelings. And she was an emotional person, a lot of times she'd cry. And when I did, well, I'd nearly cry. But anyway, I got to think about, why ain't I the same way of the Lord? If I would never say that again to my mother, whatever it was I said that hurt her feelings, why do I allow myself to do that sin again against the Lord? Against him, because I'm going against his will in something that hurt his feelings, and then I opened do it again. So do you do that thing again that made your mom cry? No. Why don't I have that same quick answer when I've done something that would hurt the Lord's feelings because I've let him down. I've disappointed him.
SPEAKER_01:And do you do you think sometimes you you can physically see your mother cry?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, I can see her right now for me doing it.
SPEAKER_01:Physically be upset and it still probably affects you, even just thinking about it right now.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Watch me, I'll be crying here in a minute. Yes, it does. I mean, think about it yourself. And I mean, I mean, I don't even I hate to hurt my my wife's feelings and see her cry also, but I mean, you just go back to everybody's mom, it's you know, and and and you go back to your mom lots of times and you go, man, one person I didn't want to hurt your feelings was my mom. And then I did at times in my life, some of it just childish stuff. And but as I got older, I even did a few times. But that's true repentance. And we'll speak on repentance sometimes, but why do we repeat these same sins? And a lot of them are just habitual habit-like forming. Cuss words is an easy one to just get into have some people make a cuss word part of their language.
SPEAKER_01:And really, I mean, you could a cuss word is, you know, and we do that with all kinds of things when we talk about language. We we talk to somebody, we they you're gonna use the same words. And so cussing is no difference. I mean, once they, you know, I used to cuss all the time when I was younger. And it it was hard to break that habit. It was hard to break that because we just get in that, we just start doing it. It becomes our vocab vocabulary.
SPEAKER_02:Breaking a habit. We've all got bad habits, right? So I had a good friend of mine tell me, he said, we were roping one day, and I said, Well, I got a lot of bad habits to break over here. And he goes, Would you quit trying to break them bad habits? They're so hard to break. Just quit trying to break them. Develop new habits that does away with what you were doing wrong. Develop the right way to do it, the right words to say, and break, don't try to break that old habit because it stays on your mind and you just do it again. But when you put the fresh new habit in, it overtakes and it will you'll develop it faster than you'll break a bad habit.
SPEAKER_01:So that so then how would that look like with the example you used of cussing? How how would that look with that? You know, well, I need to stop cussing. I need to not how how would that I've caught myself cussing or or stopping before I cuss now.
SPEAKER_02:And you can put in a different word if you want to. But of course, if anger's behind it, it can still have a bad meaning. You know, some of these words that we call cuss words wouldn't have a bad meaning if we mean if we didn't make it bad. But then I just kind of said, you know, to be a servant of the Lord, I'm gonna stop cussing's not gonna be in my vocabulary. That's my new habit, is to take it out of my vocabulary. And I've reduced it by 80% in the last year. I've been trying to do it for a number of years, and it would slowly get a little better, but it's developing this new habit of not cussing, not letting that take over. And when I start to have that anger or whatever that caused me to cuss, it's like that's not in my vocabulary no more. Like I said, I'm only about 80%.
SPEAKER_01:So do you find new words to say, or is it just you what what do you replace that?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you you downplay the anger, there's no reason to even be cussing. Some people cuss just to express as an adjective with whatever they're trying to describe. That blanket, you know, whatever, and you're going, really? But when you really get if you're using cuss word in anger, if you're just using it to describe, or when you're talking about trying to sort cattle out here and you're you're talking about one of them, well, it's it's just a description of something that you're using that you know, so you earn mannered thing is what I might have said in the past, slide something in like that, that you know, just downplay it, make it more pleasant. But the main thing is, is I try to eliminate cuss words from my from my talk every day in my communication.
SPEAKER_01:And and really that's just being more intentional.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Because you're trying to be more intentional about the good habit, which is don't cuss, don't say the bad words.
SPEAKER_02:And they still slip from time to time. So I'm not here sitting here saying that they don't happen. But it's less frequent. And it's a lot less frequent. And even if I notice it, well, I know it's a lot less frequent.
SPEAKER_01:And you know, and and there's bigger things than when we think about sin, when we think about a sin loop, a habit loop, and they're kind of they can kind of be very similar. If we think about, you know, the Israelites. How many times did they think they had it, you know, they had it under control. And then they'd, you know, go into bondage, call out to God. God would rescue them, let them go along. They think we got it, we got it under control. And here again, they get in bondage, call out to God, and we see that in Judges, we see that over and over and over, in that loop. And I think we've mentioned before that we can look back at those and say, you know, that's I mean, can you not see that? But I think that we have those sin loops in in our lives that we do it over and over and over. Maybe, maybe it's the way we verbally or mostly treat our spouse. Maybe it's the way we do that with our kids.
SPEAKER_02:I see a lot of people the way they describe other people. Right? Well, there's old lucky over there. You know, he has bar with a silver spoon in his mouth. They're you know, they're really running him down when they say that. You know, but they're envy of him. And envy's in the Bible about that's not good. And you start envying someone, it will turn into sinful ways. But so often it's in our actions toward the rest of the world and and to our neighbor. We're supposed to love our neighbor, we shouldn't be envy of it. So we shouldn't be saying nothing bad. We shouldn't have a lying tongue to make them try to run them down to make ourselves feel better. But uh know a guy that comes to mind, and again, don't mean to but he's constantly running down someone. It it it's it's just his way, I guess. I don't know, but I I've called his hand on it a time or two, but he he just constantly running down the fellow man or somebody, you know, other people he knows.
SPEAKER_01:But but I think sometimes if we look deeper into that, you know, if we think about a habit loop, and I and I I think a sin loop is very, very common to a habit loop. A habit loop, we have there's three processes in that habit loop. And it's called a loop because it goes around and around and around. But you have a cue, something that triggers you. Let's let's take cussing, for example. It's a cow that doesn't do what it's supposed to do. So that's the trigger.
SPEAKER_02:What I want it to do. It ain't actually going to do that, but I want it to do.
SPEAKER_01:Right. What you want it to do. And so the action then you take is you say a cuss word. Because then you reward what's the payoff from saying that cuss word? Well, I feel better.
SPEAKER_02:Suppose pressure release.
SPEAKER_01:The pressure release, yeah. The gentleman you're talking about that constantly puts people down. What's the trigger? He's thinking, I think they're doing better than me. Well, I'm gonna start putting them down because now that makes me feel better that maybe I'm doing, I'm still doing better than they are. So I'll put them down. And so, you know, the same thing as the habit. Why do we, you know, if we have a bad habit of overeating, we might have an emotional trigger. Something made me sad. And so the action I take is I'm gonna go eat something. And then the reward is I'm not so sad anymore. But then what happens is we continue that habit loop, and now we we have an excessive weight gain. Now, now we have some cardiovascular issues. Now we have some big problems because of our habit loop.
SPEAKER_02:And so that's one way abuse is I mean like drug abuse or alcohol abuse gets started, is what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01:Because there's something that triggers it. And then so you take an action of maybe if it's if it's alcohol. I had a really rough day at work today. I need just just a little I need a drink. Just a little drink, just tonight. And then you drink that word need.
SPEAKER_02:We've talked about needs and wants before, but I've said that before. I need a drink. Yeah. I didn't need a drink.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm. But you felt like but but but if you do that, it's gonna, it's gonna relax me. And so, and you go, that really relaxed me. You rock on for about a week, and man, you had a really bad day today. I mean, you have a drink, you go, I just need another drink. I just just you know, and oh, that felt a lot better. And that's how it grows a little bit. So now, you know, before long, you're waking up in the morning and go, it's gonna be a tough day. I better just grab me a little, put something on my coffee. I better pour make a heavy pour on that one. And I mean, alcohol, any kind of addiction, whether it's drugs, whether it's gambling, whether it's food addictions, all those things follow the same pattern. There's always a reward. And typically following the reward when it's a bad habit is guilt, shame. So, which triggers, which is funny because it triggers again, and now you need that action of maybe to drink.
SPEAKER_02:You're trying to replace that guilt, yes, or that.
SPEAKER_01:Or you're trying to bury it, hide it. And so the before we know it, now it is spoured out of control. Just like in Judges when it's talking about the Israelites, we got this, Lord. And now, you know, that that's really their their trigger. Oh, we got that. And now they're in bondage, and well, I guess that would be their trigger. It's now like, oh, we need some help. And then he helps them. Oh, we're all good now. And they get feeling good, and you forget. And and that's why we continue to do sin because I've been so good, you know, I haven't cussed at all. And then you say a few words, that made me feel a lot better. Well, I feel pretty guilty about that. Or I get mad really quick, and then something happens, and all of a sudden, you said a string of them that didn't even make any sense together, but it made you feel better. And the same thing about talking about people. Typically, why do we why do we compare our lives on social media? Envy, jealousy, because again, we want to feel a little bit better. I'm not, you know, I'm gonna just scroll a little bit. I'm gonna trigger, I'm gonna do something. And then the action is, well, look how they went on vacation. I bet, you know, and you start talking about, you know, maybe I always laugh because we take group pictures at at the gym for different things, and everybody's like, well, how do I look? You know, making sure they look right. And I said, Oh, don't ever worry about how you look. Because when somebody sees a picture and they're in it, where are they gonna zoom into? They themselves. Oh, how'd I look? So you never have to worry about what everybody else looks like. But but after they've zoomed in, then they then they move over one person, zoom in, then move over to the next person, zoom in because we want to feel a little bit better about ourselves. That's that's the reward. Oh, now I'm not how many times do you hear this? I'm not as bad off as that person. I'm not as overweight as that person. I walk more than that person. But one of the things we talked about our groups and this week was the four different fears that hold you back. And one of those was fear of responsibility. And a lot of times when we have those addictions and those things, it's because we have a fear of taking ownership, taking responsibility. Because who's in charge of your cussing? The sole person. Who's in charge of talking about people? The sole person. Well, what if other people come to you and say, hey, did you hear about I don't really engage in that, I'll see you later. When it we have we have the sole responsibility and to alter the sin loop into a praise loop.
SPEAKER_02:Something that came to my mind was a lot of listeners might not be able to understand why I would cuss at a cow, but they sure have driven down the highway before and gotten cut off by somebody. Road rage runs rapid if you want to cut.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02:But it and it's so I mean, my wife, she's told me to shut up them people up 13 hear what you're saying to them. You know, and in the car. Most people, yeah, in the car. But you know, but most people got upset in the car at one time or another. Somebody nearly hit them. They, you know, accident on the other side, they just nearly hit them.
SPEAKER_01:And if they can't hear them, sign language is universal.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I've seen it.
SPEAKER_01:I've seen it.
SPEAKER_02:And so, you know, but it's a place that is real easy for you, a lot of people, to get angry. And we don't even know this person. And it could have been a total accident. Most of the time they're probably on their cell phones, so it's not an accident, in my opinion. They wasn't paying attention to the road, but it could have been something that caused it to bend, you know, we've all made mistakes. But road rage is something that just came to my mind on how quick that we can lose our temper or our poise or forget our morals and fall off into the sand trap. And once you get to cussing everybody that's driving wild down the highway, well, pretty well that's most of them.
SPEAKER_01:So you remember how good that feels.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:How much how that made you feel better? And and you know, and so we've kind of talked about, you know, how do you get in the habit loop or how do you get in the sin loop, but how do you get out? Which is kind of what you mentioned earlier, which is being intentional and focused on what's the good habits. And we take something as you know, we might say small, but it, you know, if we talk about cussing, maybe it is well darned, instead of the other word. You know, I'm very, very big on baby steps. Why don't most New Year's resolutions not work? Because they try to flip it off. Whatever they were doing wrong, they try to completely flip it off instead of slowly moving towards the correct thing. So maybe it is changing some words. Maybe if, you know, this probably wouldn't work for you because you got to be around the cows, but you might you might even go as far as say, get away from the cows. You know, I mean that that might even sound easier. If there's people that are encouraging you to take those drinks, to do those, to, to, to do those addictive behaviors, then you have to start stepping away from those. Because again, you're being intentional. What's my new habit?
SPEAKER_02:If there's anything that's causing you to sin, shouldn't you try to get away from it? No matter what it is.
SPEAKER_01:And that sounds really easy.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. But it's not. I had a guy tell me one time said, Well, the career I'm in, it's pretty hard not to not to kind of lean a little bit over here across a cross a line. And I go, then you need to change careers. Honestly, think about it. If you think your business is keeping you from being honest, well, you've got to kind of tell people this or they won't do it. Is that honesty? Well, that's the way you make it in this business. But if that is doing that to you, and we can go to scripture and find a lot of scripture to back that up. I don't have it available right off the top of my head. But you know, if if your hand is causing you to steal, it says to cut it off, right? If your eyes is causing you to look where you ain't supposed to be looking, you're supposed to gouge them out. I hadn't yet. But you're you're not you shouldn't let those things, if it's causing, if it's leading you to sin against the Lord, you're supposed to get away from it, cut it off, get it out of your life. If that's what's causing, which in most cases, we use that as a crutch. It's not the cattle, it's not the driver driving by in the road rage, it's not really them that they ain't what's causing you to cuss. We're using cuss real, that's one example here today. You know, it's not the good-looking gal that walked by you that's causing you to have a bad thought. You know, it's not your neighbor next door doing good or doing bad, and then you have bad thoughts towards your neighbor. It's not their fault, it's your frame of mind that's that's that's the sin that is manifested in. How do you take that? How do you deal with that? That's where the sin comes in.
SPEAKER_01:And I think when we when we're trying to change the sin loop, it it is important that we first we dissect it as as each one of us. What's my sin? And then you say, what's triggering me? What what happens when I do that sin? What is going on? And then what action do I take? Typically, when when I do that sin, what triggers me? What's the action I take? And how do I feel when that's over? I had physical education, elementary physical education teacher visit with me this week, or last week, and she was talking about they're doing the fitness grant, it's where these the kids do push-ups and sit-ups and and that sort of thing, and to see where they're at as they as they go through the school year. And one of the things she said when when they get done these tests, she hasn't put a little face by their number, a smiley face, a sad face. How how did they feel they did? And she said, the interesting thing is that if they're not real happy with it, they always improve. She said, if they have put a smiley face, they're they're pleased with it, they're okay with it. She doesn't see much improvement at those in those numbers. But if they put a sad face, because it's associated with a feeling. And so the reward, how am I feeling from that? And so that's really how do we change it? How do we find a new trigger? When this thing happens, what's something new I can do? And and that's your action. Because the trigger's not always going to change. The trigger might always be the same. The cows still make you mad, right? That's still the trigger.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:They irritate you. But now the action is you're not cussing at them. You may be walking away from them. Because the roar, you go, man, I feel pretty good. I didn't lose it on that cow. I just walked away. And that can go for a person, that can go for anything. But now you've changed the trigger, it stays the same, but now you've taken the action because now you have a different reward.
SPEAKER_02:You made reference to baby steps in the change sometimes as well. You know, cold turkey just dropping and bomb. I used to chew tobacco. And I finally had to do it to where I didn't put it away. That was the only way for me to truly quit. I quit kind of or slow down and be right back. But anyway, I done away with it. But baby steps, is that not true when we accept Jesus as the Lord and Savior and we become a Christian? We don't stop all those bad thoughts, all those bad actions just immediately. I somebody may they're a lot stronger than I am, which but they're a lot stronger than most. If they can just shut it off. I mean, boom, coke turkey. No thoughts, no words, no actions. No, it's usually a gradual step of changing the bad habit into a new habit. And developing the new way of doing it against trying to break the old, just developing a new way of thinking, and a new way of of changing those bad thoughts, whatever they were that was going on that was causing you to sin. And that's what the walk is about, in my opinion, is we start off pretty slow as we're changing. Well, we're st I'm still going pretty slow, but I still see change. If if I see change in my life that I'm improving with my thoughts, with my sinful ways, and if I'm improving and there's less of them, I gotta think that God is smiling. That I am improving. Because I think it's pretty impossible for most of mankind to change, just turn turn the key and changes. So it's a slow growth. Parts of growth. Some so faster than others.
SPEAKER_01:But but you're still maturing, you're still growing. Yes. You don't, you don't, you're not born and then all of us instantly turn into an adult with a fully formed brain.
SPEAKER_02:Part of it's in a way we change it. Part of it's in understanding what God truly is and what the Bible's saying, and understanding that is part of our growth and our walk. So but no, it's not a push the button, it's over. I'm done. So don't get discouraged. Continue to try and continue to go. God said David was a man after his own heart, and you can go down and look at what all David had done. And but he constantly went back and repented and improved. I felt like he was taking steps all the time and doing God's will better. And so if you're working at and truly progressing, I think God is pleased with your efforts. Because we're never gonna get to that perfect spot. But we're we're advancing all the time trying to get closer to that.
SPEAKER_01:And I think you know, that you know, we we might look at other Christians and go, wow, they're such a good Christian. But we don't always know their walk. I always joke at the at the gym, telling people, you know, don't stop. Do that one more rep, especially when they're doing abs. Because I always joke, it's like, oh, you stopped. That next rep could have been the one you got a six-pack on. And you stop one rep short of your six-pack when they get tired. And I think, you know, keep trying. Even when you sin, keep doing better because you never know when that next one is the one that makes the biggest difference that you've seen. It's just that next one could be the one, could be the one of the compounding effect of the road you've been walking that you go, I get it. That was the time that I started treating people better. I I I felt better by doing better. It was that one time. Because we'll have the same, we can get down with ourselves about sinning over and over and over, like, what's wrong with you? Why can't you figure this out?
SPEAKER_02:You've got to have confidence to be successful about whatever you do in life, truthfully. So your confidence is that, hey, I'm improving. That's what you're referring to. I'm improving. I used to I had a bad habit. I picked the Bible up and read, you know, chapter maybe, and I quit reading. Well, develop a new habit that I want to read the Bible on a continual basis, and that's improved. Have confidence in yourself. That you are, and when you do see you've improved, I mean a lot of people may not see it, but I know me and I have improved. I think you can say the same in your life. You know yourself better than anybody besides God, and if you're be honest with yourself, if you really have been, you can see it. So be proud of that and have confidence. Hey, I can do this. So to be successful in those kind of things, you've got to have some confidence and you've got to see improvement. Yes, you're gonna fall back a little bit, or you're gonna mess up again. Be confident and go forward.
SPEAKER_01:And and that's really how we make progress because we're all gonna fail, we're all gonna falter, we're all gonna fall, but the one that's successful, just like you said, it's the one that keeps getting up.
SPEAKER_02:Don't make excuses for why you fail bad. Look yourself in the mirror, accept it, and go forward.
SPEAKER_01:Say, I take responsibility for that.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. You spoke of that earlier. Take responsibility. And say I understand I'm human, but I'm not going to accept. I'm not going to accept the way my mind's thinking. I'm going forward. Yeah, I made a little boo-boo here, but I'm going forward. I'm going to keep taking those baby steps.
SPEAKER_01:Because if we do that, we're going to look like a much different person, much different Christian in the years to come. Just like from when we were, you know, two years old. We're both a lot older now. We both look way different than we did when we were two. And the same is true with our with our walk with in with God. It's we're going to look different if we keep doing those. And we are, we sin still every day. I don't go through a perfect day. No. I don't think I've ever had a perfect day.
SPEAKER_02:Very few have.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't know what a perfect day looks like. Whether it's a thought or an attitude or words, I can't say I've ever had a perfect day.
SPEAKER_02:But I mean, anybody listening, we've all had that. And I know someone listening has had that and they get down. Well, I'm I'm tired of trying. It ain't gonna work it out.
SPEAKER_01:That's just who I am.
SPEAKER_02:I'm tired of our trying. I'm tired of this. I'm it ain't done me no good. I had one time, oh yeah. I tried that church deal for a while, and they didn't help me out, Eddie. I thought, you went, but you didn't try. You just showed up and thought walking in the door was going to help you. But you didn't try. Most people can succeed at some level. Whatever they want to figure out, you know, just a little bit, or a good bit, you know, if they put out effort. You're just talking about your diet or, you know, cutting back or being a little overweight and cutting back. Most people you've seen, you've you're a trainer, you understand. People that put out effort, it may not be quite the goal that they had, or the steps along the way might not have been there. Well, we know what happens when they quit. But the ones that stay with it, they succeed to a better level. It might not be to the level they want, but they succeed some. And and you know, we're not ever going to reach perfection. No one on this earth will. Jesus the only one that had that. But we all can improve our relationship with God, the way we walk, the example we set for others.
SPEAKER_01:And and we encourage you, we talk as we talk, we talk about those that have asked Jesus into their heart forgiveness for the sins. But and if if you haven't done that, you live a life and and you're always facing these sins and you haven't done that. That's the opportunity is to invite Jesus into your life and ask him to forgive your sins. Again, will it be a immediately 180 where life immediately gets better the moment you do that? Not necessarily. There's still going to be a long road and battle ahead, but with Jesus, we have hope.
SPEAKER_02:How bad do you want to turn your life around? There's been some certain things in my life I wanted pretty bad. I mean, within reason. And I stayed after them. If I really wanted it. Most things, if you really want it, I mean, you gotta stay within reason. There's different things and resources, different things. But if you really want to be, and how do you want to measure success, I guess is one way to put it. But your success, if you really stay at it, you will reach some level of success. Just as I speak in there on your weight program or whatever. If you're if you're trying to lose 40 pounds, well, if you'll work at it, you'll get some level of that. You may not get the full 40, but you'll get some level of it and accept that and keep working at it.
SPEAKER_01:And I always liken it too, decide or try. And when people say I'm gonna try, that means failure is an option. Which failure means you're you're down and you're not getting back up. When you say, I'm gonna decide to do this, that means that there's no roadblock, no obstacle too big, that if I fall down, I'm gonna get back up. Because I decided to do that. And I think that's the difference. I'm gonna decide to be better. I'm not gonna try to be better because that's giving me an out. But I'm gonna decide to be a better Christian. That doesn't mean I'm perfect. That means I fall, I'm gonna get back up. I'm gonna try to do better. I'm gonna try to do better because I decide to be better.
SPEAKER_02:And remember those people out there that tend me. And they're gonna shoot at you with comments. Well, that didn't work for me. Or I don't see, I can't tell that you got any better, or that didn't work for so-and-so, or yada yada. All kinds of comments is gonna come firing at you. Then just hold strong. You'll learn to put on the armor of God where you can withstand that. It gets the more you study something, the more you learn. The more you study and you try to walk the path, the easier it is to hold it. My that's my thoughts. My experience.
SPEAKER_01:I think it'd be good maybe if we finish with um going over that verse one more time. And then we'll do it right again. Then we'll finish up in prayer.
SPEAKER_02:But again, it's in Romans, and it's in Romans chapter 7, verse 15. And there's quite a few verses in there that all tie this, but that was way too much for us to try to handle. So I just took one of them out here. And it was Paul speaking again. That he is really speaking about his struggle, that his struggle with sin, and he's trying. I mean, uh, look who Paul, you know. Paul. Yeah. He wrote a good many books of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm. We're told and we would say a man of faith.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, he went up there on that list, and he says, I do not understand what I do for what I want to do, I do not do but what I hate to do. It's he does what he did not want to do because he wanted to do something good. But he didn't do that. He ended up doing what he hated to do. And we'll fall in that trap of being human. And don't use that as a cop out. But you can also use that and go, hey, it happens. That's part of the human side of God made us human. He didn't make us a God also. We're gonna fail at times. But Paul's strong and he went on, but he had recognized that we do have weaknesses and we are gonna fall as humans and fail in what we please our God, pleasing our father. And so, but it's it's pretty interesting, you know. For what I want to do, I do not do, but I hate, I do. For what I hate, I do.
SPEAKER_01:And I think when just in closing, when it comes to the sin loop, it's when we when we fail, like Paul's talking about, we fall, we reach out a hand in prayer. I say, God, lift me up, help me up. I messed up again, I fell down again. Lift me up, give me the strength, pull me back up.
SPEAKER_02:And with Jesus dying for our sins, the Lord hand is our way to what Jesus done for us has made it to where that's available. Let's talk to the Lord. My dear grace, Heavenly Father, we stop at this time, Lord. We we recognize that we all sh fall short of what you've asked of us on this walk that we have here on this earth. We do fall short, Lord. But we also know that you are there for us. And if our heart is truly with you, and our effort is there, that you're there to forgive us. Lord, as we go down this path of life, we know without you that we have no afterlife at all. We have no hope. But with you and what your son done for us on the cross, Lord, we rest at ease that if we devote ourselves to you, Lord, that your promises never have been broken. Lord, I come to you thanking you for this opportunity that you've given us by living in this country that we're able to speak of you freely. Lord, I thank you for anyone that's listening here. I hope that what we said today might bring them a little closer to you or a little more understanding of your word and your will. I come to you in the name of my Savior, your son, Jesus Christ's name. Amen. Amen.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much for joining us on The Road Traveled. Today we we hope shared a little bit of our journey with you, a little bit of our road, and we're looking forward to seeing you down your road traveled.
SPEAKER_00:You've been listening to The Road Travel, where real faith meets real life. Remember, every step matters, even the hard ones. So keep walking your road with courage, conviction, and Christ leading the way. Until next time, your hosts, Aaron and Allen, say we'll see you down the road.