Part of
But there’s a whole category of prayer which consists of begging God’s forgiveness for sins. Sometimes it’s a part of
Emotions vary. Some of us
I’m not one of those. I’m the type which is really annoyed with myself for repeating the same stupid sins. Far less weeping; far more angry self-recrimination. Still others are upset, frustrated, embarrassed, exasperated, resigned, furious, woebegone… There’s no one way people feel, and they won’t always feel the same way every single time. But the one thing we have in common isn’t emotion, but unhappiness. We fell short of God’s glory. So we repent.
(Well… some of us don’t repent. We don’t like being on the wrong side of God, and wanna rectify that. But we don’t really have any plan to change our behavior any. I’ll discuss that rotten attitude another time.)
There are two ways Christians approach the “Forgive me” prayer. Some of us are just crushed by it. Others of us are blasé: “Hey, sin’s a part of life, and God knows I’m not perfect.” There are attitudes in between, but these are the main two extremes I find in Christians: Those who worry we’re taxing the limits
The bothered Christian.
Still, I’ve met those Christians where they’re very bothered about being sinners. They pray “Forgive me” all the time—and it never seems to entirely take away the ever-present guilty feeling they struggle with. They apologize to God for everything. They confess their sins to everyone. They still feel horribly unworthy of God’s love.
No, don’t give ’em the old platitude, “Well technically you’re not worthy of God’s love—but that’s why God’s grace is so awesome, ’cause your worthiness doesn’t matter!” I warn you in advance, ’cause I learned from experience: This doesn’t make ’em feel any better. The reason their unworthiness constantly bugs ’em is they have insufficient
Part of their insecurity comes from, of course, other guilty Christians. Plus all the dirty
Then there are bad Christian teachers. They claim (’cause they heard it from other bad Christian teachers), “Every time you sin, it’s just one more burden added to Jesus’s back on that cross.” As if you weren’t feeling guilty enough about sin: Now you gotta imagine—as I did when I was a child—your sins traveling back thorough time, piling onto Jesus, making him way a thousand pounds on that cross, making the nails drag into him that much more. In trying to discourage me from sin, my children’s pastor simply gave me nightmarish visions.
You wanna know the unintended, regular side effect of this overemphasis on our sins? We don’t sin any less; we pray less.
Y’see, humans sin. Before you became Christian, you sinned all the time. (Usually you didn’t know any better!) Then you became Christian, realized how much you sinned… and in some cases even sinned more. ’Cause newbies aren’t
Well, there are four ways to get rid of one’s guilt:
- DISTRACTIONS. Lots and lots of distractions. Either to keep yourself from thinking about sin… or to keep yourself from thinking about the fact you sinned.
- CHEAP GRACE. Embrace the attitude that since God forgives all, there’s nothing to feel guilty about! Banish those guilty thoughts altogether. Sin all you like! You got grace. Lots and lots of grace.
- ANTINOMIANISM. Which is theologian-speak for “No more Law.” Plenty of Christians believe
Jesus did away with the Law, and sinceGod’s commands are all void, nothing’s a sin anymore! You can’t sin. You can break human laws though, so no robbing banks… but otherwise, have fun! - AVOID GOD. Do you feel bad and guilty when you approach God? Simple solution: Stop doing that. Quit praying. Relax.
At different times, I tried all of ’em.
Probably the most common route is avoiding God. If we never talk to him, we never gotta apologize for sins. And Christians can go big long stretches without prayer. We might only
Cheap grace is the next most common: “God has so much grace, you can do anything. Seriously, anything. You’re forgiven. You’re good!” These Christians as a result are indistinguishable from
When we sin, there’s Jesus.
The fact “Forgive us” is part of the Lord’s Prayer indicates Jesus expects us to ask forgiveness on a regular basis. Maybe just about every prayer. ’Cause humans sin, Christians included. Over time we grow to sin less, but we still slip up. Again and again and again. We’ll spend the rest of our lives offering the “Forgive me” prayer to God.
And that’s fine. It’s a constant, regular reminder we owe God everything. It’s not meant to create, nor trigger, guilt. There might be those days when you didn’t sin, but when you recite the Lord’s Prayer again, there’s that “Forgive us” in it—because it’s a reminder. Not a condemnation. A reminder God forgives us—and that we must forgive others.
The “cheap grace” fans are correct: Jesus did take care of our sins once and for all, long ago. Where they go wrong is they think we should therefore dodge the reminder. “Forgive me” reminds us God’s grace isn’t cheap. It cost Jesus his life. But God nonetheless forgives us, freely—and that’s what’s awesome about it.
Yeah, sometimes we’re gonna forget God is gracious. When we commit a sin we feel especially bad about, we get this deranged mental picture of God as a shocked, disappointed, aggrieved parent. He’ll have to give us a paddling or something. In other words,
But stop that. That’s not God. Yeah, your sins aren’t nothing, but neither are they infinite. God is infinite. He has no trouble forgiving anything and everything we’ve ever done and ever will.
We can’t overwhelm God’s ability to forgive. We’ll never commit a sin that’s the last straw, where God says, “Okay that’s unforgivable; you’re going to hell now.” We’ll never alienate God so bad he’ll never speak to us again—won’t love us anymore, won’t be immediately willing to run down the street to embrace us once we return.
From time to time you’ll encounter Christians who teach otherwise. That’s because we humans have a hard time forgiving. Students have asked me, “What about someone who was really bad?” and describe the worst person, with the worst sins, they could imagine. And once or twice I very nearly said, “Well…” ’cause I’m not that gracious. Good thing I’m not God! He is that gracious.
It’ll totally offend plenty of Christians’ sensibilities when people, who totally don’t deserve it, get into God’s kingdom same as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Fact is, God could give a holy crap about our sensibilities. He wants everybody saved.
