from our Lay Leader
Sin is its own sentence. God does not have to accuse us; our own sins accuse us. God does not have to punish us. Our own sins form our penalty. Our sins punish us with guilt. That is the form of our punishment. Unrelenting guilt that forms bars as hard and as confining as the iron bars of a real life prison. And only God can vanquish our guilt. Only God can free us. Only God can offer us forgiveness of our sins.
But only by accepting God as our Creator and Giver of Life can we come before him and ask for forgiveness. He does not offer blanket forgiveness. We must ask, we must acknowledge our sin and express our desire for forgiveness and our willingness to submit to God, and pledge to change our way, to move away–in the opposite direction–from that sin. God responds to this humility with unconditional forgiveness. Only then is our personal guilt able to be released. Some people–after receiving God’s forgiveness–still hang on to their guilt, believing that they are still judge, and sentencing themselves to a life sentence. But if we believe that God is the only sovereign of our lives, He commutes our self-imposed sentence, He pardons us, and we are set free from the prison of our guilt.