Stupid Question

Comments

• marys

  June 2004

  it's a completely valid question...
  quick verse..
  
  "And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him." Luke 17:4
  
  if Christ wants us to treat each other in this manner.. wouldn't it make perfect sense that He treats us the same way? there is no extent to forgiveness.. it's the gift of Grace... coming from a never-ending Source.. but you have to watch out.. repetition of a sin without a truly repentant heart is dangerous and will prob. lead you to get to comfortable and start thinking that "eh.. whatever.. i'll just confess again anyway".. your goal should be to confess and truly try to not do it again... but yea... def. not a stupid question.
• battata

  June 2004

  "And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."
  -Col. 2:13-14
  
  "Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffereing; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do."
  -Col. 3:12-13
  
  "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you."
  -Eph. 4:32
  
  "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself."
  -Eph. 1:7-9
  
  "He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins."
  -Col. 1:13-14
  
  "To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him."
  -Daniel 9:9
  
  "Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much."
  -James 5:16
• karfaw

  June 2004

  Hi SunBabyNJ,
  
  In fact this is a good question not a stupid one. Our sins are forgiven as soon as we repent and confess it to the priest. And as one saint said once : "If we remember our sins, God will forget it for us but if we try to forget our sins, God will remember it for us".
  
  The only condition for sins forgiveness is to repent and to confess it and then it will be not only forgiven by God but even forgotten by Him. God, who never forgets anything and who knows everything, promised us to forget our sins if we repent. This is the only thing which is mentionned in the Bible that God forgets. This means that we will not even have to mention it when we stand in front of God in the Judgement day. The only sins which we will mention are the ones which we did not repent and confess to our Father of confession. These ones we shall be asked about them by our Lord.
  
  God is very merciful and He forgives us with one condition. We should be sincere in our repentence and willing not to repeat it. Even if we repeat our sins again and again everytime we have to repent and He will forgive us. The only problem some people sin, repent, and confess their sins putting in their heart to repeat the same sin and re-confess again. This is not acceptable. Because they are mocking of God. But if they repent with the intention of not repeating the sin, even if they redo it, God knows their heart and will forgive them.
  
  And as one saint said once : "The saint may sin 7 times a day and repent but the sinner may sin only once and do not repent". The difference is not in not committing a sin (This would be the ideal case). But the difference is in the sincere repentance.
  
  May God help us to always repent and confess our sins before the day where we will have to give the account of all our unrepentant sins.
  
  Thank you and may God bless you.
  
  Pray for me.
  
  KF
• G.J.I

  June 2004

  i guess the only person who can aswer that question is the sinner, there was a really good thing pope shenuda wrote about failing and falling to sin, he said once u fall to a sin, and u repent, u should never fall to that same sin again.
• sleepymusician

  June 2004

  We're all human, so we may fall into the same sin twice, but don't deal with it the same. If you saw that the first time you did something it didn't work, try something different. God will guide us when he sees that we're trying, and we're not letting ourselves fall into sin.
  
  Hope that helped. ;)
  
  sleepy