About a week ago I was driving on North High Street in Hillsboro lunchtime traffic and I was caught behind a large truck. This particular truck had a message on the back of it which read, “Need Change? You Must Love God More Than Sin.”

I should tell you that usually I don’t think too much about religious messages on the back of trucks. I generally find them overly simplistic and kind of preachy, a turn off for me on two counts. Mostly I just ignore them and move on, but this certain truck had me as a captive audience for a few minutes as we slowly made our way north. I thought to myself, “That’s a pretty good message with some solid theology behind it.”

Let me explain. I know a lot of people who want to initiate change in their lives. Whether it is losing weight, getting a better paying job, listening to people before speaking or beating an addiction, people have all kinds of reasons they are dissatisfied with the status quo and want to do something new. Some want to get more consistent in their walk with God. They may have deeply ingrained patterns of behavior and thought that they want to change, but they find that when the temptation comes, they are powerless to do anything about it other than cave in again.

The problem is sin that is pretty interesting to us and highly addictive as well. Original sin is the idea that ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, the human race is predisposed to sin. It comes naturally to us because something is broken inside of us that makes us love sin more than loving God.

There are certain things in everyone’s life that are especially tempting while others things are not a problem at all. Your set of temptations are not exactly the same as mine, but we both have temptations that have the capacity to trip us up all the time. The old-fashioned word for these hard-to-deal-with transgressions is “besetting sins.” It might be greed, gossip, drugs, drunkenness, lust, envy, pride, selfishness, violence, anger or any number of other things that don’t belong in your life but you find you are powerless against. It’s a love-hate relationship when it comes to particular sins. You love it so much you give in to it, but as soon as you do, you despise yourself for it and vow never to do it again.

What the message on the back of the truck got right is that it goes back to who you love or what you love the most. If I try to force something out of my life just through gritting my teeth and having enough self-discipline to make the change, I usually fail miserably after a few days. The old patterns assert themselves with renewed intensity, and in trying to not think about those things I find I think about them more and more until I give in. What has worked better for me is when I am being tempted by something, instead of focusing on the wrong thing that doesn’t belong in my life, I start to focus on God and what He means to me. I imagine Jesus right in the same room with me, and I begin to tell Him what He means to me. I pray. I get out my Bible and start to read it. I focus on my love for God more than my wish to engage in the wrong sort of behavior or thoughts.

This idea of loving God more than anyone or anything else goes back to the Old Testament, to Deuteronomy 6:5, where it says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” This verse was so important to Jesus that when He was asked what the greatest commandment is, he quoted this verse. (Matthew 22:37) If you love God like that, then the other stuff fades into the background. Love for God is a much better way to defeat the temptation to sin versus exercising your self-discipline by itself.

I’ve heard various preachers talk about this by referencing a couple of stories from Greek mythology. According to the myths, there was a certain island where some half-bird half-women called Sirens lured passing ships into the rocks by singing an irresistible song to them. The sailors would go mad with desire for them and fall into their trap. When Odysseus and his men were getting ready to pass the island, he had all his men put beeswax in their ears so that they couldn’t hear the song at all. Odysseus wanted to hear the song for himself, so he had his men bind him tightly to the mast of the ship with strict instructions that they were not to unbind him until they were safely passed. In this manner, Odysseus heard the Siren song, straining against the ropes that bound him, but kept safe from the snare.

In another myth, Jason and the Argonauts were passing the same island, but Jason had this advantage: he had the best lute player in the world in the person of Orpheus. When the ship got in range of the Siren song, the crew gathered on the deck to listen to Orpheus strum on his lute. The sound of the lute was so beautiful that the sailors were held captive by Orpheus’ song and were immune from the song of the Sirens.

When it comes to dealing with besetting sins, you can try to avoid them altogether (put wax in your ears), use your self-discipline to keep you on the straight and narrow (bind yourself to the mast), or love the Lord your God so much that the temptations are no longer tempting (listen to the better song). Of those three, the back of the truck tells us plainly and simply, go in the way of loving God.

Derek Russell is pastor of the Hillsboro Global Methodist Church. He loves Jesus, family, dogs and football.