Forgiveness

I have posted before about how none of us is perfect. Much as I try to maintain that illusion, myself, I know it isn't true (I also know many other people who are better at maintaining that illusion than I am). Fortunately, there is forgiveness through the grace of God. Now there is a difference between willful sin and a mistake. A mistake can still be a sin, but it wasn't intentional; it was basically an accident. There are some things that would seem to be willful sin to the human mind, that really only happened because the individual responsible got sucked into a situation where his or her mistake seemed like the right thing to do, at the time. Bill Watterson drew a Calvin and Hobbes strip once where Calvin is running along with a water balloon, and he throws the balloon up in the air, and continues to run (I can only assume that he wanted to see the water balloon hit). Well, the balloon comes back down, right on his head. The final line of the strip is, "How can something that seemed so brilliant at its conception, seem so stupid in retrospect?" That's an easy thing for a comic-strip character to do, but let's face it, we've all done something similar (not with a water balloon, but still).
Apostle Paul warns us in Romans 6 that we should not continue in sin, with the idea that Grace will cover our sins.
By the way, some people think that just thinking about doing something wrong is sin--Jesus said that whosoever looketh after a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Notice He didn't say that any man who finds a woman attractive has committed... There is difference between being tempted and committing sin in one's own mind. Granted, both could be called 'sinful thoughts,' but, temptation isn't something that you have control over. Remember that Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, yet He never committed sin.
One thing to understand is that forgiveness is not the same as remission. To have sins remitted is to have them erased. God doesn't remember them at all (at least not when dealing with the person who committed them--He still remembers them when dealing with the victim of the sin, until that person either forgives the sinner or dies--but that's a whole other Bible study). Forgiveness means that the sins have been removed from you, but God hasn't forgotten them. To be honest, that's almost as good, but there are consequences. If you've ever seen the movie, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" there's a line where the escaped convicts came upon a baptismal ceremony, and two of them jump in and get baptized. They understand that this will absolve them of their sins, and momentarily think that they don't have to run anymore; but George Clooney, as the other convict, tells them, "Even if that did put you square with the Lord, the State of Mississippi's a little more hard-nosed." Even when God forgets, people still remember. I have also known people that think that absolution means that there are no ramifications to their actions. There's an old joke about people that go out on Saturday night and sow wild oats, and then go to church on Sunday morning and pray for crop failure. God will forgive, but He will not always deliver you from the consequences of you own actions. That's a whole other prayer request.