SOAP: Sin, Forgiveness, Grace & Moving on

Hello friends!

What started as a personal journal entry and prayer, has turned into a SOAP post.

When I started writing this morning, I didn’t want to talk publicly about my sin because, well, who likes to talk about THAT? Instead, my typical behavior is to just beat myself up about it… yep even stuff from years ago. (Ugggh! How stupid and without grace!!!)

And so, well, I started writing and then, before I knew it, I had something I knew I had to share.

I do hope it speaks to you, too, in some way.

Scripture:

“What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”  Romans 6:21-22

Observation and Application (yep, I combined ’em this time)

I think what’s being said here is that sin is most definitely bad.  We know it. We feel it.  And yet we still do it. What benefit do we really get from it? We SHOULD stop — but also now that (when) we have turned to Christ, there is forgiveness… even in our sin.

Wait a minute. Scratch that.  

Not ‘even in’… simply IN– We wouldn’t need forgiveness if there wasn’t any sin!!

So with this forgiveness, we should acknowledge the sin, acknowledge forgiveness (and beautiful grace) and MOVE ON.  Stop beating ourselves up. Stop doing it as we can. Accept grace and give it to ourselves, too.

This doesn’t give us license to keep going, sinning all willy nilly, but it does mean we shouldn’t dwell on our mistakes and self flagellate. (OOF! Guilty here!!)

Prayer:

Lord, please help me in living a life that is honoring to you.  I know I could do better.  I need your help in doing that.  And I need your forgiveness. I have sinned, do sin and, well, we both know I will continue to sin. If not,  I wouldn’t need you now, would I? But I do, and if I truly trust, I must truly accept your forgiveness. What a wonderful thing that forgiveness is! It offers grace as an extension of your love. Thank you so very much for that, Father.

Thanks for stopping me today and making me think about this some more. Please help it to stay on my heart and in my head as I move forward from here. And please also let it rattle someone else’s heart and head where they need it, too.

I love you.

Thank you.

Amen