Wouldn't we expect Christians -- who love God and want to please him -- to sin less than those who are atheists because they "love darkness"?
After all, God hates sin, and you Christians are free willed, are you not? Even if you can't choose to never sin, surely you can choose to sin less than you would if you were a non-believer, right?
These are actually decent questions to ask, because it doesn't make sense for someone to convert from atheism to Christianity and say, "Well, I've accepted Jesus, but I'm going to continue to sin just as much as when I was a non-believer, since after all, God will forgive me if I ask Him to." Who thinks that way?
Absolutely.
Im afraid we cannot simply look to the nominal christian for the answer for this, rather scripture is a better benchmark.
Romans is a good place to examine the topic. Paul goes into detail about the nature of sin that is at work in every human heart, and how the work of the Cross is to render that nature of sin redundant. Thereafter if we walk according to the life that Jesus imparts, we walk in the light and righteousness.
"Reckon yourselves dead to sin...."
That means compute. Calculate.
Unfortunately many christians are still struggling and battling the nature of sin unnecessarily, because they do not grasp what has been accomplished on their behalf. Hence the need to teach people as Paul did.
9 However, you are not [living] in the flesh [controlled by the sinful nature] but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God lives in you [directing and guiding you]. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him [and is not a child of God]. 10 If Christ lives in you, though your [natural] body is dead because of sin, your spirit is alive because of righteousness [which He provides]. 11 And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.
12 So then, [a]brothers and sisters, we have an obligation, but not to our flesh [our human nature, our worldliness, our sinful capacity], to live according to the [impulses of the] flesh [our nature without the Holy Spirit]— 13 for if you are living according to the [impulses of the] flesh, you are going to die. But if [you are living] by the [power of the Holy] Spirit you are habitually putting to death the sinful deeds of the body, you will [really] live forever. 14 For all who are allowing themselves to be led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading again to fear [of God’s judgment], but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons [the Spirit producing sonship] by which we [joyfully] cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit Himself testifies and confirms together with our spirit [assuring us] that we [believers] are children of God. 17 And if [we are His] children, [then we are His] heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ [sharing His spiritual blessing and inheritance], if indeed we share in His suffering so that we may also share in His glory.Earlier in Romans 6 Paul states how Sin shall not have dominion over us. i.e. we are not slaves to it any longer.
Therefore it in inevitable we sin less, if we so live.
The nature and power of sin has been tackled 2000 years ago. It is an objectively historic accomplished fact.
But there is a difference between what has been accomplished, and that being worked out in effect in our lives.
Oswald Chambers puts it like this...
A man cannot redeem himself— redemption is the work of God, and is absolutely finished and complete. And its application to individual people is a matter of their own individual action or response to it. A distinction must always be made between the revealed truth of redemption and the actual conscious experience of salvation in a person’s life. That is the gospel. That is the good news. If we who were once dead in our sins and trespasses of the laws of God, continue to so trespass and sin as before, then our gospel and salvation is pretty pointless. We can be freed from the power and dominion of sin. Not by our own accomplishments, but with our cooperation with what has been done on our behalf.