If I am saved by grace, why do I still sin?

Sin

If I am saved by grace, why do I still sin?

Father, forgive me for I have sinned…

As a child I must have started this prayer of contrition a thousand times, usually with a Priest on the other side of a veiled confessional. I grew up this way, telling a Priest what I had done wrong, receiving prayers and acts of penance. Each time, while I felt intellectually freer, I never felt clean never felt washed in Christ’s gift of grace.

Why was that?

I think at the root of the problem is the conflict of my carnal and spiritual natures. In my heart and soul I hate sin. Yet as a human I seem to be unable to escape my carnal nature. Each time I sin I beg forgiveness I claim my inheritance in Christ, his grace and resolve to turn away to repent from those acts which separate me from him.

Create in me a clean heart Oh God and renew my spirit

Deep within me I know that Christ is doing a work in me. He is transforming me. One day I hope to be changed enough that I will begin to reflect his glory and not my small self. I see my heart and it is stained black with sin, but through the cross these stains are being moved toward the edges dissipating, lessening. One day the darkness of the edges will be all that is left, another day I will have a clean heart, a heart totally committed and devoted to God. The darkness inside will be brought to the light. While the darkness tries to hide, it will fail. All will be made light. God please speed up your work on my heart I am so tired of failing.

I find some solace in the book of Romans, particularly the end of chapter 7 and the start of 8. I know deep in my soul that the answers to my struggles lie in these verses.

Romans 7: 15-25 8: 1-3
15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

8:1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

I see in Paul’s words that I am not alone in this battle. Most importantly my stumbles are not fatal. As I have my hope and salvation in Christ Jesus my savior, I cannot be condemned. My salvation is a gift of grace through the resurrection of Christ. Here in lies my theology, I am not worthy of it, I cannot earn it, it was freely given to me out of a sacrifice of love.

Father deliver me
Wash me clean
Only your grace and love can cleanse me
I need you today more than ever
The battle rages but my hope is in you
That you will deliver me from this hell
That you will carry me through this
Father deliver me
I am before you in the dust
I am not worthy father
Heal me
Deliver me

In your sons victorious name I call on you to deliver me

Amen