Question: Greg,

My wife and I are in our early 20’s and are both Christians. We attend church pretty regularly. My problem is that I keep going through these spurts where I am totally into God and praying every day. . .and from there I slide to where I stop praying and start doing things that are not very good in the Lord’s eyes, i.e. . .bad language, drinking, and looking at adult material. I feel really low and spiritually drained when I keep going from one extreme to another. I am most happy in my marriage and life when I am walking God’s path, but for some reason I keep going back to my old ways. I was wondering if this is pretty common among Christians and what can I do to stay on the right path with God? I get really confused when I keep bouncing back and forth and wonder why I keep doing this to myself. I noticed in a Q/A you said you were going to send a lady a book called "Know What You Believe and Know Why You Believe". If you have any extra copies, I would love one. Keep up the good work.

Answer: Dear Jeremy,

The ups and downs of Christian life you describe are simply a definition of the human condition – we are fatally flawed, sinful and broken. While Christ lives his life in those who trust in him and accept him completely as sufficient for their salvation, the new life in Christ is not free from sin. This is not a justification of sin, but rather a frank admission that as long as we are in the flesh we are imperfect and we will sin. Paul talks about his struggle with sin in Romans 7:7-25 – and John talks about this same grim reality in I John 1:5-10 – but in both places we see that they do so in order to remind us of the Answer – how we deal with sin, and how we live in the Spirit while in the body of flesh