Grace is God’s call to us to be in a personal relationship with him. Grace
means that we are fully known and loved by God in all our humanity. It
enables us to feel accepted, affirmed, loved, and it helps us to mature as
Christians in our walk with God.

In response to God’s invitation we want to reciprocate, to give more of
ourselves to God, and this would probably mean giving more time, talents,
gifts and our own selves to God.

What a wonderful life if this was like a Walt Disney cartoon, and we could
skip down the path of life hand-in-hand with God, flowers blooming on
either side, animals applauding and birds singing about our heads.

Unfortunately life isn’t like that. Obstacles – sometimes from our former
life – come across our path, and we can’t always avoid them or easily
overcome them. This makes it very important for us to know how to deal
with these obstacles when they occur.

Faith is the step of opening up to God’s invitation and having ongoing
trust in God’s leading. Sin is the opposite – when we sin we deliberately
build our lives around our own self rather than God. This means that we
separate ourselves from God. Both the Old and New testaments speak of this
separation because of sin. The writer of the later part of Isaiah (59:2)
says, ‘…your iniquities have been barriers between you and your God, and
your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear’, whilst
in Romans (6:23) Paul writes, ‘For the wages of sin is death, but the free
gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

Even in the life of grace we encounter sin. The First Letter of John opens
the second chapter with, ‘My little children, I am writing these things to
you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous…’ But I’m getting ahead of
myself. Let’s explore the topic of separation from God a little before we
come to the remedies for sin.

Obstacles are not sent by God. The Letter of James (1:13) tells us, ‘No
one, when tempted, should say, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot
be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.’ The next couple of
verses (1:14-15) show that in many cases sin comes out of our own desires
because we are ‘lured and enticed’ by them to a life that is separate from
God, a life leading to death. James exhorts us not to be deceived by our
desires.

Sometimes the Devil is referred to by people as a joke or merely an
influence. Others believe that, just as Jesus and Paul spoke of Satan in
real terms, so the devil is the personification of evil. Whether or not
you believe the devil is personally trying to distract you away from your
relationship with God, or whether you view these events as the world
casting obstacles in your way, the possibility of separation from God is a
serious reality here.

Just after Easter I went on a personal retreat, staying with the family of
my spiritual director. One day, walking alongside a lovely creek in the
bird wetlands near his home, he asked, ‘And how does the devil get at you,
Jill, in your day-to-day life? What does he do to interrupt your life?’
This is a question which brings you up short no matter how beautiful, how
distracting your surroundings are.

The devil gets at me through good works – throw a good work my way and I
find it very hard to resist. Sometimes study leaves me learning about God
instead of knowing God. There is a need for reflection, to see how this
study furthers me on my Christian walk. Overbusyness and no time to reflect
certainly lead to separation from God. And separation from God is a sin!

Now I want to talk about the world. God saw his creation as good (Gen
1:31), and it’s my belief that we were created to share his joy in it. I
think this is still true today, despite the mess we’ve made of the world.
We’ve exploited it when we should have been God’s stewards.

The pursuit of power, materialism and success at any price are summed up in
the phrases:

Thou shalt not get caught,

or Why shouldn’t I? Everyone else is doing it.

And so we need to ask ourselves:

* What is the proper sharing of God’s bounty, and what is greed?

* Does it really make any sense to be an individual swimming against
the tide when most people are out for their own ends and be blowed to the
person next door?

There is light on the horizon. Jesus says (John 16:33), ‘In the world you
face persecution. But take courage: I have conquered the world.’

It’s all right for us to be different from the rest of the world, and to
look after God’s creation.

The sinful desires of the flesh separate us from God. Paul, in his Letter
to the Galatians (5:19-21), spells these out in great detail, but adds that
his list is not exhaustive – in other words, we have to watch very
carefully for those worldly issues which separate us from God.

The story of the prodigal son shows lots of examples of the desires of the
flesh overcoming usual respect and consideration. The prodigal son got fed
up at home, and started wondering about the things he could do if his
father were dead and he had come into his inheritance. These things became
so important to him that he forgot propriety and went to his father and
asked him to divide the estate there and then. While life was easy he
continued to enjoy a lavish lifestyle, but when the money was gone he
discovered how empty it all was – without relationships with family and
friends, without respect or loyalty. This was separation and isolation at
its worst.

How fortunate it was that when he finally decided to return his father was
watching for him, ready to restore him fully to his former position as
beloved family member. And it was this that showed up how guilty the older
son was in his smugness. May we avoid this sort of attitude, and may we
know how fortunate we are that God comes to meet us, always more than
half-way there to forgive and restore the loving relationship when we turn
back to him.

Temptation in itself is not a sin. Jesus himself was tempted in ways that
are very alluring to most of us, yet the letter to the Hebrews (4:14-15)
tells us he did not sin. Paul assures us in his First Letter to the
Corinthians (10:13) that God is faithful and we will never be tested beyond
our ability to withstand it, and there will always be a way out. It is not
God here doing the testing, but God being our protector.

As I was thinking over this talk, and praying over it, I felt very ‘called’
to tell of an episode in my own life of which I’m not at all proud. It’s
our practice to take such leading seriously because we believe that it
comes from God and that it comes for a reason even if we cannot see what
that reason is. Yet I tried to wriggle out of it because of my pride.
Pride can really separate us from God. Anyway, I’m going to tell you the
story because it links in well with how we can deal with sin in our lives.

I have been a widow since my husband was killed in a plane crash some ten
years ago. At that time we had been married for 27 years, but for the last
18 years of that he had had a series of affairs which had been fairly
public knowledge. There are a number of reasons why I lived with this
situation, still living with my husband and feeling married and yet
insecure on a number of fronts. Part of the reason was my marriage vows,
part the fact that we had 3 young children when this began.

My husband wanted the first woman to live with us as a threesome, but I
wouldn’t have that. Then he wanted me to start a relationship with the
husband, but I wouldn’t have that either. In the second relationship there
were times when I worked with the husband, and one night we heard our
spouses talking on an open intercom. The extent of their relationship was
obvious, and we felt hurt and lonely. We started a relationship also, and
this went on for several years.

When my adultery started I was a churchgoer, and I realised that this
relationship would offend people if they knew of it, so I stopped going to
church. My marriage was better, I think because my husband no longer felt
so guilty, but I was separating myself from God. In the middle of all this
I became very sick and nearly died twice in one year from massive
infection. Despite my children, I wouldn’t have cared if I had died.

Altogether I was out of the church for about 15 years, and in the 9 years
since then I have experienced real healing – I’ll tell you about it as we
look at the ways of remedying sin in our lives. Our sins – our obstacles
to grace – are a bit like a child covering its eyes and thinking it can’t
be seen.

The first of the remedies for sin is what ‘A Prayerbook for Australia’
calls Reconciliation of a Penitent. The First Letter of John (1:9) tells
us that if we confess our sins God will forgive us and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. In the Anglican church confession can be done in a very
formal fashion, or it can be very informal, with everything in between
possible! Search for a priest you will be comfortable working through this
process with. Just remember that this person will understand, because we
are all sinners one way or another – it is part of our humanity. Also, God
is on our side and will be there to meet us.

Certain elements are common to the various ways of making our confession.
The first is that we have to be repentant – that is, turning right away
from the things we have been doing that separated us from God. If you want
to make a confession the person hearing your confession will help you with
all of this.

The second is that we have to be ready to say what these bad things were
without any excuses – my story says how hurt and lonely I was, yet my sin
was plainly and simply adultery, and that was what I confessed. God knows
the circumstances anyway, and what I am turning away from is the sin
itself.

The third common element is the absolution said by the priest who is
hearing the confession. Making a confession leaves most people feeling
very vulnerable, but there is something very powerful in having to find the
words to do it, and in hearing the comforting words of absolution. At my
second confession the priest suggested, as we chatted about what I was
going to confess, that instead of confession we made it a healing rite, and
that is what we did – again, a very powerful service.

The fourth element is our new life, our changed life – again the person
hearing your confession could chat with you about this. On this last visit
my spiritual director brought up the affair I had had, even though he knew
it had been confessed and absolved. He pushed the issue along for a bit,
then said, ‘Confessed, forgiven – do you feel cleansed?” He knew the
answer was ‘no’ because of the way I had been responding to his opening up
of the issue – so we prayed about it. Some issues are a bit like a broken
leg – even once the plaster is off the leg still has to become strong
again. Since the first time I made a personal confession to God before a
priest and received Absolution the General Confession during the communion
service has always been a lot more meaningful to me.

Prayer is a very useful way of dealing with sin. Jesus told the disciples
in the Garden of Gethsemane to watch and pray so that they wouldn’t fall
into temptation. After my husband’s accident I was the one who told most
of the women who had been in his life of his death. I wanted them to know
before his name was published by the media. I ended up with much righteous
resentment towards these women – perhaps a bit like that older brother in
the story of the prodigal son. After I had come back into the church I was
at a healing weekend run by Canon Jim Glennon. Canon Jim told me that the
best way he knew to deal with righteous resentment was to pray for those
people – you couldn’t feel resentment towards those you really truly pray
for. This has been excellent advice in all sorts of situations across the
years since then.

A life of prayer means being disciplined or it won’t happen, but it doesn’t
have to be too formal – different personality types have different ways of
praying and worshipping. Something that calms you and settles you is
important, and I find it helpful to include the everyday things that are
happening, like children playing outside, or traffic going past, so that
they don’t become distractions. Somewhere in the prayer it is good to
examine what is separating us from God at present, and deal with that
issue. We need to make time to listen to God.

Spiritual direction is a great help when we want to reflect on our lives
and grow in our relationship with God. It can be quite a search to find
the right person – a wise member of the clergy or a lay person – for
guidance. A spiritual director is not a problem solver or a counsellor
– a
better description would be a listener and encourager who will teach
discernment through prayer and Scripture. Sometimes people use the word
mentor.

It is also good to have a soul mate, or a prayer partner, to share our
journey with.

Sometimes symbols like a cross can help to keep us focussed, and poems like
‘Footprints’ certainly help me to remember – when I don’t feel that God is
near – that I am really being carried by him. I even have this poem on my
favourite coffee mug.

The final remedy is frequent and regular contact with other Christians.
The writer to the Hebrews tells us to meet together and encourage each
other (10:24-25). We cannot survive in a world that is hostile and
indifferent to Christianity without the support of a genuine Christian
community.

Through all of these remedies, of course, our reading of the Scriptures and
our reflection on them is essential.

It is possible to grow in mastery over sin and to live the life of grace,
but we do this not in our own power or in the terms of this world, but in
the victorious power of Jesus who proclaimed, ‘I have overcome the world!’
and ‘I am with you always even unto the end of the age’. Don’t forget, we
don’t have to be perfect, just do our best.

Will you trust in Jesus,
Step out in faith, and
Follow him?

[The Christian woman who gave this talk wishes to remain anonymous]