To sin no more!

While we are in sin, we pray to God, "please do not let me sin again" as if God himself is the reason we sin against Him. By the merit of Christ's redemptive act, Grace is available freely to everyone but that does not exempt us from acting on the grace, believing in the power of grace and taking the first crucial step to refuse sin and its pleasures.

Jesus said to the man who was completely paralyzed "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk" [John 5:8]. While you and I are in Sin, Jesus tells us "Get up and walk in holiness". We ought to "believe", get up and begin to walk in holiness by the merit of Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection. God's grace readily becomes a transforming force within us when we believe and act accordingly.

When I pray, Lord, please don’t let me sin again, I'm actually saying I'm not responsible for my sin,I’m beyond redemption and I do not believe in your forgiveness. I expect some magical powers to fall from heaven and pull me out. I completely withhold any effort from my side. It would be like the paralyzed man instead actually getting up and walking saying to Jesus Lord, how can I get up, I’m paralyzed. If he does that, he would be blatantly stating that he does not believe in Jesus and is expecting some kind of force to come and lift him up and make him walk.

It is all about believing! It is faith that propels us from mediocrity. We are capable of doing this because of the grace that is available to us. We must start living and behaving like a saint, like Christ himself because He has given us His forgiveness, His Righteousness, Body and Blood and His Holy Spirit, the very spirit that made him do all that he did. If you and I are still lamenting our frailty,it is because we do not believe that we are new creation in Christ [2 Cor. 5:17].

Next time if we fall in sin and grieve our Lord, let the prayer be “I have grieved You my beloved for I sought goodness without you and expected cheap pleasure to satisfy my senses. I will sin no more because there is nothing that is as sweet as you. Thank you for your unconditional forgiveness. I hate sin and I resolve to sin no more, even if it costs my life. I willingly allow Your Grace to transform me into a new creation cause I'm in Christ and Christ in me"

This process of continuously being reborn is initiated in faith, matured in perfect contrition, exercised in the Sacrament of Reconciliation Jesus instituted, giving his apostles, the power to forgive sins. [John 20:23] and completed in the act of satisfying of what God's Justice demands. Justice demands that we do what is necessary to repair what we have caused to defunct. "Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount."[Luke 19:8]

Let us prove our love for Jesus. Let us demonstrate that we value His sweetness over everything else -  to sin no more.