Committed to Sin and Getting Better At It: The Malignant Narcissist

He who commits sin [who practices evil doing] is of the devil [takes his character from the evil one]

1 John 3:8 (AMP)

For many years this verse, and others like it in the book of 1 John, would bother me.

I know me!  I know how far, and how often, I fall short of the mark in my Christian walk.  I have not quite reached Christ like perfection in my daily walk.  I sin.

Yet I know I have eternal life, the very life and nature of God residing in me.  I remember the day the Holy Spirit took that heart of stone out of me and replaced it with a heart of flesh.

I know it's His character dwelling in me that enables me to experience pain, sorrow and grief when I sin, which in turns causes me to recognize my innermost character is of God and not the devil.  Yet, in spite of knowing this, verses like 1 John 3:8 have always tended to bother me.

Bothered me, that is, until the day it dawned on me what the Bible was actually saying.

Two words that clued me in on the meaning of this verse, and verses like it, were "practice" and "commit."

Let's look at these two words from a perspective you may have never noticed before.

Practice

To perform or exercise repeatedly in order to acquire or perfect a skill.

To work at

Commit

To pledge oneself to

To give over to

Entrust

To be bound emotionally or intellectually to an ideal or course of action

The individual who truly loves God, who honestly seeks to do what's right, and who places a greater value on truth than his or her own fantasies, may sin, and may sin often, very much like the tax collector or the prostitute of Jesus' day.

This does NOT mean he is practicing sin.  This does NOT mean she is committing sin.

If words mean anything, to practice sin means to exercise sin repeatedly, habitually, and deliberately for the purpose of acquiring and perfecting skill, aptitude, expertise, and know-how at it.

To practice sin means to work at sin in order to hone and perfect ones skill at sin, very much like a band student practices a musical instrument, a doctor practices medic, or a lawyer practices law.

The guy that practices sin has no interest whatsoever in breaking free of it.  On the contrary, the guy practicing sin is making an earnest effort to get better at doing it, as well as hiding it.

Sin is how this guy gets what he wants out of life, so it stands to reason the better he is at it, the more he'll obtain what he's after.

He is, in essence, a practitioner of sin.

Sin, evil and wickedness become a type of craft to those who practice it.

Practice makes perfect does not only apply to piano lessons!

Comparable to the practice of sin is the committing of sin.

Committing sin does not simply mean acting in a sinful manner, or "doing" sin.  Once again, if words mean anything, committing sin is to pledge oneself to sin, to give oneself over to sin, and to place ones trust in sin.  Committing sin is the conscious, deliberate binding of oneself spiritually, emotionally and intellectually to the ideals and behaviors inherent with sin for one's own lusts and purposes.

The committing of sin could be likened to a man committing himself to the woman he marries.  He's not simply dating his wife.  He's not simply living under the same roof with his wife.  No, once he has committed himself in marriage to this woman, he has essentially become one flesh with her.  He is and forever will be defined by his commitment to her, and everything he is, everything he becomes, everything he does will be the result of and in relation to that commitment.

The man spoken of in 1 John practices sin because he is committed to sin.  He has embraced sin, wickedness and evil, making it his own.

Evil has become this individuals mistress if you will.  He is, in every sense of the word, committed to her.

Can you see how this verse and others like it do not apply to true Christians, as well as individuals who may not have professed Christ but remain sensitive to their personal conscience and sense of morality?

The person described in this verse is not merely the man or woman who misses the mark due to the fallen, selfish nature abiding in each and every one of us, that nature that most of us contend with throughout our lives.

This verse reveals the individual who not only refuses to contend with his fallen nature, but gives himself completely over to it.

Malignant narcissists are the individuals among us who have knowingly committed themselves to evil for the purpose of acquiring what they, in their own hearts and minds, feel entitled to, and who deliberately apply themselves to the acquiring and perfecting of strategies and tactics necessary to successfully carry out the evil they have embraced.

They are practitioners of evil.  It has become their craft of choice.  And they work at it night and day.

They are indeed children of the devil.