How do we break the bondage of Sin?

I have talked about this a little in previous posts, but this is necessary to become a Saint. This is part of the Transformation we all have to go through to be a better child of God and to serve Him as His Disciple. You say you don’t want to be a Saint? You can’t get to Heaven unless you are a Saint. There is no sin of any kind in Heaven. We will never perfect ourselves because of Original Sin, but it is the effort we put forth in trying to change for Jesus that prompts God to give us the graces to change. If we don’t put forth the effort, then we don’t receive the graces. God loves us and wants us back, but if we don’t continually turn away and try to abstain from sin, He will not continue to transform us with the graces it takes to persevere in that transformation. God does the work, we have to show Him that we want to change, with His graces and be better for Him.

How many times have we all said or heard someone say I don’t need to go to confession, because my sins aren’t that bad. Or, I don’t need to confess my sins to a priest, I can just confess them to God alone. We should confess our sins to God daily and ask for His forgiveness daily, however, how do we know we are forgiven? The Sacrament of Penance is one of the Seven Sacraments. God forgives, but it should never be an assumption on our part that He will always allow us to keep sinning as long as we keep coming back to Him for forgiveness. If you look at God’s mercy from this perspective, then you are assuming you can just keep sinning and God will always allow you to come back as long as you ask for forgiveness. You must ask for God’s graces to be transformed with confession to be changed into His image. We can always go back to Him for forgiveness no matter how bad the sin is, but we must always try and stop sinning. We have to remember that God knows our hearts. We should never assume that we can confess our sins later, or ask God to forgive later. James 5:16 tells us that we should confess our sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. It is in this confession of sin to another person that we try and understand the gravity of the sin against God and how we can work on stopping that particular sin. Even minor or venial sins can lead to mortal or serious sin if we don’t try and stop committing the sin. A good confessor can help us do that. Stop assuming your sins aren’t that bad and start showing God that you love Him enough to stop offending Him even in the most minor of sins. Sin weakens us Spiritually and leaves us vulnerable to more sin. Once this perpetual slippery slope keeps going into more sin, the enemy begins to lead us away from God. We start to compare ourselves to others and think we don’t need to confess anything because we are good people. Then, minor sins don’t look so bad. Then major sins we are committing aren’t so bad because we did a good act or deed for someone last week. Then we stop going to Church. The enemy just keeps us believing everything is okay until we have fallen deep into deception and the Holy Spirit pulls back and we have pulled away from God.

Also, good acts mean nothing if you have mortal sins on your soul. In Matthew 7: 21-23, Jesus tells us, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in Heaven.” Do you believe sin is the will of God Our Father? This scripture verse alone tells us that you can’t get into Heaven just on good deeds. You have to try and abstain from sin in addition to good deeds and loving your neighbor as yourself. Don’t ever allow anyone to tell you that sin no longer exists. It is a lie, and it is a lie from the enemy.

In Galatians 5:16-26, St. Paul tells us that we have to Live by the Spirit. He tells us that the Spirit opposes the flesh, and the flesh opposes the Spirit. What this means is if we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us, the graces that God gives us allows us to have the strength to move away from the desires of the flesh. Likewise, if we don’t surrender and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us, then we fall more easily into temptations of the flesh. This is how the enemy has been allowed to transform our whole world into the corruption we are living in today. We, as an entire world, have moved away from the Blessed Trinity and moved into the desires of our flesh and egocentric selves. The more our world becomes ego centered, and less God centered, the more God pulls away. He always gives us that choice from our own free will. If we choose ourselves over God, then He leaves us to our own vices and we don’t receive the virtues of His Sacred Heart. In Isaiah 1: 1-2, we learn the virtues of David were wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, and fear of the Lord. These graces given to us from the Holy Spirit only come when we prove to Our Lord that we are worthy enough, like King David, to receive them. If we don’t strive to move away and abstain from all sin, then how do we expect to receive these virtues for transformation? Will we continue to sin during this transformation? Yes, but we have to show Jesus that we are trying to stop sinning and we ask Him to give us the graces to stop. Each one of us, no matter how far along our transformation, should continue to strive to be Saints because only God knows how far we have come and how far we still have left to go. If we believe we have made it, then we have allowed the enemy to deceive us, yet again. Don’t be deceived anymore. Go back to confession with a contrite heart and ask the Holy Spirit to show you what you still need to confess and change.

When we are standing before Jesus during the Warning, WHO IS HOLY, we are going to be so ashamed of even the greatest and smallest of sins we have conducted, that we will all be running to the confessional to get them off our souls. Don’t wait to confess your sins because you may die and never get that chance again. Stop assuming you are good, and strive to be a Saint, and have fear of the Lord to know that He is HOLY and we are not. Sin is a burden that leads us into bondage. Virtues we receive from the Holy Spirit lead us to freedom, because we turn towards God and away from sin.

Here is another message from Jesus on Revelation Mary from February 1, 2016. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yeqFZL42ACI.