I heard someone recently ask Elon Musk what he thought was the greatest piece of advice ever given him. After some deliberation he concluded that it was “to strive to be less wrong.” This struck me as a different and perhaps helpful way in approaching life. It is futile and frustrating to strive for perfection. However, to simply shave off a little bit of imperfection seems much more likely and encouraging of a goal. I could say, “I am never going to eat anything unhealthy ever again!” Wishful thinking. However, if I say, “If all else fails, I’m just not going to drink soda for a few months.” This is much, much more likely to be realistic and, if achieved, will push my health in a positive direction.

The ultimate goal for every person is to become more and more like Jesus Christ. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:28-29). We are born in the image of our fallen father Adam and it is the lifelong challenge for us all to be recreated and restored into the image of the perfect son of God. This is aiming at perfection. My thought at this moment though is not to think of it as, “I have to become perfect,” but rather, “Today the goal is just to remove something – even if it’s seemingly small – from what is unlike Christ. Sculptures start with a bland block and chisel away little by little until the desired image appears. 

Here are a few suggestions on how to effectively purge off imperfections of your life…

1. Remember who God is and who you are. God made you. You did not exist eternally and then at one point create a god to worship. God always existed, then in time he made you, to worship him. God created the game, therefore he gets to set the rules. He embedded the rules in our hearts. We intuitively know what is right from wrong. We didn’t create our conscience, it was factory installed. Who put it there? God. This all means that our obligation is to obey the rules. Obey and live, disobey and die. Submit to God’s authority & rules and be happy, or rebel and be sad. Where is your heart right now? Is it resting under God’s authority? Are you content being a servant of God, or are you still longing to be the master of your own life? Positioning yourself gently under God is the first step to sinning less. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10)
2. We must admit that we are sinful and that the true enemy is within. We are our own worst enemy. Of course, there is a devil, a corrupt world, difficult people, and severely challenging trials, but if we were like God (if we were holy) we still would not sin because we would be patient, merciful, forgiving and full of faith. I am the problem, not something or someone else. I have this part of me that doesn’t want to admit it. Why are we so quick to judge others, to point out their faults, to excuse our own and to think that we are better than others? Why does it seem so offensive when other people wrong us, but when we do wrong it doesn’t seem to bother us as much? This is our real nature manifesting itself. We are sinners. Admit it. If we don’t we will always be making excuses for ourselves, never actually growing spiritually. We must be quick to turn ourselves in to God. “Woe is me, for I am undone!” (Isaiah 6:5) “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

3. Meditate on the consequences of your sins until it hurts. Our sins displease God: our wise creator, benevolent provider, redeemer, savior and friend: the one who left heaven and was crucified for us. There is no one so gentle towards you; so kind, compassionate, merciful, longsuffering, encouraging, thoughtful, committed. Think of how loving God is to you. He only wants your good. He never makes fun of you, hurts you, lies to you, or abandons you. He is by far your best friend. When you choose to sin it breaks God’s heart because he loves you: he knows that in some way your joy and peace is going to be disturbed because of this. Do you see him? He’s not upset or mad, he’s broken. Honor him by doing what pleases him.  

4. Our sins also displease and hurt others. Every time we sin, no matter what it is, we hurt other people. Sometimes it is directly, by saying or doing something wrong to that person. But think about the other people involved in your life. Those who witness your wrong doings are presented with an unpleasant thing to watch and the weak are encouraged to do the same. When we sin other people are inconvenienced by it. There has to be valuable time spent trying to deal with the sin until it is corrected. Life is not all about you. We know deep down that it is more honorable to put others’ needs and desires in front of our own. Love other people by choosing to sin less. Another thought on this is, every time you sin, you become less equipped to serve other people in the future, so people who could have benefitted from you now will not. “Consider one another” (Hebrews 10:24). 

5. Sinning now conditions you to sin easier and more in the future. Most people don’t like smoking the first time they try, but many acquire a taste for it. The more you allow yourself to do the same wrong thing over and over and over again, the easier it is going to become and the more you will enjoy it. Drug addicts build up a tolerance to the chemicals. This means that the more their bodies become used to those chemicals, the more chemicals are needed in order to get the same effect. A person who started consistently smoking a couple cigarettes a day will be smoking a whole pack after some time. Do you want to enjoy sin more and need more extreme sins to get the same feeling? God forbid. If not, sin less. Be afraid of where you may end up. Ask any old person and they will tell you that time flies. Time flies. They say about things that happened 40, 50, 60, 70 years ago, “It seems like yesterday.” Don’t wake up tomorrow being deep in sin because you excused your “little sins” today. “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate” (Proverbs 8:13). 

6. Sin robs you. Do you like being robbed or lied to? Of course not! But when you sin you are freely giving away the most precious treasures you have: your peace, your joy, your freedom! Think about it. When you sin you hide because you’re scared and ashamed. Sin never leads you to joy or confidence. It may feel good for a brief moment, but then you are plagued with worry: you start having to think of ways to not get caught or to get out of the consequences. All of this is dark. Sin is a shrewd liar: promising you freedom but only bringing you into bondage. It’s proven that little children are happier if they play in an area that has clear boundaries. If they have no boundaries and no rules then they get frustrated. Dealing with God’s rules and boundaries are hard to handle sometimes, but playing inside of them is unexpectedly the true path to freedom and joy. “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:21-23).

7. You only have one life. If you break your pencil you can always go and get a new one. You can’t just go get a new one if you break you. You only have one opportunity to manage the life that you have. How many days old are you? Today, I am on exactly day 13,600. That’s a lot of days. I will never be able to live any of my past days, ever again. I only had one chance to either make good decisions or bad decisions. The person I am today is the culmination of all of those decisions. The more that I consistently do what is right the better my life will be. The more I abuse my body, soul, mind and spirit, the worse my life is going to become. Also, we have to live with this life for the rest of our lives. You will always carry your past decisions with you. Strive to live in a way that will preserve your life instead of destroying it. You are precious and valuable – there is only one you – so treat yourself as though you are. “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

8. Have faith. There are times in your life when you desperately wanted something and didn’t get it, but it was ok. For example, there was a night when you really wanted dessert, but your parents said, “No.” It hurt alot and it seemed in the moment like you couldn’t handle it. But the next morning you completely forgot about it never to think about it again. Recognize that temptations only last for a short while. If you overcome it in the moment it will go away. Whatever the sin is, it will try to convince you that you will never be happy without it, but this is a lie. The truth is that you need righteousness and holiness, because without them you truly will not ever be happy. Crave what is good, yield to holiness and it will satisfy you for real. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him” (James 1:12).

9. Believe the Gospel: the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. You cannot sin less without Jesus. You have a fundamental problem: you are a sinner, you’ve sinned already and you will want to sin more in the future. Thankfully, Jesus died for all of your sins – past, present and future. Not only did he die for you, but also rose from the dead, for you. This means that he is the way for us to have power over the temptations of sin. Jesus came out of the grave: he can create life out of death. If he can do that, then he has the power and wisdom to be able to make you happy and content without that sin. You do need water and food to survive, but there is no sin that you need to survive or to prosper. You need the miraculous, creative power of Jesus to generate in you what is not there. This miracle happens as we internalize and obey the truth. Jesus said, “The truth shall make you free.” There is nothing in this world you can see or touch that will truly make you happy. Truth, righteousness and love makes you happy, and these are received only through the Gospel. So, confess your sins to God. Ask Jesus to forgive you. Thank God and rejoice in his forgiveness. Next time you are tempted to sin, run to Jesus and ask him to save you and do a miracle in your life. Ask him to give you contentment without having whatever sin it is you’re being tempted with. “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:24-25).
10. Meditate on God’s Word. Fill up your heart and mind with his Word. “Sanctify them through thy truth, thy Word is truth” (John 17:17). God’s Word is alive and powerful. The Word will lead you to a better understanding of God, yourself and the world around you. It will make you wiser to understand good and evil. The more you learn and grow in knowledge and understanding, the more you will be able to identify sin and avoid it. “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Psalms 119:9-11).