Have faith and conquer

Do we understand little of life when we cannot put into practice our teachings? Is this a psychological anomaly? Merely having knowledge about the way we ought to conduct ourselves does not necessarily imply that we are able to live life as such. How is it then that man possesses the knowledge of evil, yet fails to resist it? We experience inert urges that rebel against our trained minds. We often yield to these urges and afterwards our guilt condemns these acts. Either we don't truly understand the teachings, or we are simply rebellious. Under the one we are ignorant and under the other we rebel against what we know. Kierkegaard understood this well when he provided a detailed description of despair in The Sickness Unto Death. Although Kierkegaard goes to great lengths to describe why men despair and offers a cure, he does not deal with the origin of every man's sin nor with the continuation of sin. Kierkegaard defines sin as standing before God not wanting to be oneself or wanting to be oneself without the Power that constitutes us (God). In this sense we have all sinned, and still sin. We know, and some truly believe, that Christ has died for us so that we can be free from sin. This means that sin is erased from past, present and future for those who believe in God. Yet if sin is forgiven, no matter the time space, why do churches preach that man should continually repent from sin? Does this mean that man has no faith every time he sins?

Here we are faced with two tough questions? One, why do we continuously sin (or do we?) despite our deepest beliefs about life, and two, does sinning imply that we lose our faith?

We know from the book of Romans that the wages of sin are death. We also know that Christ's death paid those wages in full. Thus, when believers sin, they are not subject to death. Yet the church, and the Lord's prayer, teaches us that we should pray for the forgiveness of sins. This would imply that if we did not pray for the forgiveness of sins that we would not be forgiven, and this then would imply that sinning is equivalent to not believing. But this seems at odds with the meaning of Christ's death and its implication for the forgiveness of sin. Or did we perhaps misinterpret the scripture? An answer might be given in our definition of faith, since it is by faith that we are saved. Kierkegaard provides such a definition: It is in the hopeless state of man when he realises that it is impossible to save himself that he cries out to God for help for whom all things are possible. Thus, by asking God to forgive our sins we express our faith in its purest form. We recognise firstly that we are broken, and then subsequently cry out to God to save us from this misery since there is no way that we can escape it by our own means. The reason we sin then is because we are broken. We were broken since birth. And we inherited sin from Adam and Eve. Even new born babies sin (read Augustine's Confessions for examples). So does God then take away our sins? In one way yes, and in another no. Since we are forgiven for our sins through grace by expressing our faith, sin has no power. But, all of us still sin, by lying, gossiping, stealing, lusting, etc. Hopefully we become better the more we come to appreciate what this forgiveness of sin really means. God, knowing how imperfect we are and knowing what imperfect decisions we will make, still chooses to forgive us. There is absolutely nothing that you can do and hence no possibility for you to rectify the mistakes of the past. It is purely by God's grace that you are made clean. It is thus a sin to lament your actions. You are not being pious when you throw ash over yourself, or shave your head as a sign of mourning. Instead you are showing great signs of arrogance. If God forgives you, what gives you the right not to forgive yourself? Of course it is important to repent, since repentance is an expression of faith.

So we know that we continue to sin because we are broken and at times lack faith. But we also know that sin has no hold over us since we are forgiven by God. Now, does sin, in light of believing in God, imply that I do not have faith? This would seem to be the case. Because sinning means to stand before God and rebelling against Him, or not wanting to be yourself. And this means that you put possibility (possibility of earning one's salvation) into your own hands, by thinking that you can find just cause for ill-behaviour. What else does this mean when you lie, murder, cheat, steal, gossip and commit adultery? Yet we cannot simply judge all these acts in a generic manner. We have very little understanding of man's psychology let alone a man's soul. So we leave these things to be judged perfectly by God. So we sin quite a bit after conversion by displaying a lack of faith. That is why every time we sin (whether it be out of ignorance or rebellion) we ask for forgiveness so that we can express our faith and be forgiven. That is why Kierkegaard also says that every unrepented sin is a new sin - i.e. every moment is a new sin while we neglect to ask for forgiveness. While one could argue that all sins are the same (see previous entry), with the exception of the sin against the Holy Spirit, so too can we make a case that faith is different in varying degrees. We have numerous examples in the Bible of people whose faith increased (the impossibility of the self, but the possibility of God: "Father let me become more like You and less of myself"). It is through faith that Abraham could obey God in putting Isaac on the offering altar, it is through faith that David defeated Goliath, it is through faith that Jesus withstood the Devil's temptations and it is through faith that we daily fight evil in this world. This faith needs to be expressed in prayer and in praise.

To sum up: we all sin because we lack faith, but even a little faith is enough for us to be forgiven. We express this faith in prayer and in praise by seeking God's forgiveness.  When our faith increases sin dies. We can boldly express this faith because Jesus died and defeated sin by defeating death.

So do not be disheartened when you sin. We know that there are no more wages of sin. We know that we can ask God to forgive us. We do not need to hang our heads in shame when we sin. We need to acknowledge how fallible we are and how impossible it is to free ourselves from sin's bondage. We need to acknowledge that for God all things are possible. This possibility has freed us from sin's bondage. We can express daily our faith by coming in prayer to God and repenting. We understand that repentance is not just reciting words, but giving over to God every aspect of our lives because we know how hopeless we are.