How does a Protestant deals with sin in their life.

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A Christian will say he intends to do good, but will rationalize and then turns around and does wrong .Sin involves self deception, and when one has been kidding oneself, by what means does he arrive at the conclusion that self deception has stopped ?.Protestism does not seem to offer any helpful way for the sinner to cope with guilt and reform.Carlan
 
I for one go directly to the Father thru Jesus and ask forgivness. Sometimes I am convicted as soon as I sin and other times when I am praying and am alone with God.
 
tweetymom said:
I for one go directly to the Father thru Jesus and ask forgiveness. Sometimes I am convicted as soon as I sin and other times when I am praying and am alone with God.
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Yes,that is what a practicing Catholic would do in his heart at the moment of repentance, However the Scripture does tell his Apostles( the priests) they are to give forgiveness in his name . Is that not what the Scripture is saying?

John20:22-23 says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”
Then he breathed on them and said:
“Receive the Holy Spirit, if you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven them;
If you hold them bound, they are held bound.”
Jesus gave his Church this sacrament of reconciliation, to deal with repentance and forgiveness. He gave his priests the authority to forgive in the sacrament through Him.
Carlan
 
tweetymom said:
I for one go directly to the Father thru Jesus and ask forgivness. Sometimes I am convicted as soon as I sin and other times when I am praying and am alone with God.
Click to expand...
There in is my answer how I deal with sin in my life.
 
Carlan said:
A Christian will say he intends to do good, but will rationalize and then turns around and does wrong .Sin involves self deception, and when one has been kidding oneself, by what means does he arrive at the conclusion that self deception has stopped ?.Protestism does not seem to offer any helpful way for the sinner to cope with guilt and reform.Carlan
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In Protestantism, we are called to repentance. We are then called to Christ who forgives and empowers. Accountability and commitment are also a major theme in Protestantism, so the aspect of “move forward in the right direction” gets major emphasis, as well.

.
 
Carlan said:
Yes,that is what a practicing Catholic would do in his heart at the moment of repentance, However the Scripture does tell his Apostles( the priests) they are to give forgiveness in his name . Is that not what the Scripture is saying?

John20:22-23 says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”
Then he breathed on them and said:
“Receive the Holy Spirit, if you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven them;
If you hold them bound, they are held bound.”
Jesus gave his Church this sacrament of reconciliation, to deal with repentance and forgiveness. He gave his priests the authority to forgive in the sacrament through Him.
Carlan
Click to expand...
Jesus never limited the call to or authority to forgive to the ordained clergy of The Catholic Church. Thus, Protestants believe that forgiveness may be extended and announced by those other than Catholic priests. It’s one of the reasons we don’t need to delete the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “… and forgive us our sins as WE forgive those that sin against us.”

.
 
One of my favorite writers, Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer had this to say:

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession”. (Cost of Discipleship)

“In confession we break through we break through to the true fellowship of the cross of Jesus Christ, in confessionn we confirm and accept our cross.” (Life Together)
 
AmericanJosiah said:
Jesus never limited the call to or authority to forgive to the ordained clergy of The Catholic Church. Thus, Protestants believe that forgiveness may be extended and announced by those other than Catholic priests. It’s one of the reasons we don’t need to delete the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, "… and forgive us our sins as WE forgive those that sin against us.
Click to expand...
Yes, Josiah, I do understand that some Protestant Doctrine calls for confession and forgiveness by their Pastors through Jesus. And that is good,It works for Catholic Christians;)🙂
I believe Jesus in John 20 was knowing that the healing power of repentance through another human being was especially needed by the sinner, and that is why he commissioned the Apostles that way. Christ’s Church believes that commissioning was handed on down thought the ages to the Bishops and Priests.God bless, Carlan
 
AmericanJosiah said:
Jesus never limited the call to or authority to forgive to the ordained clergy of The Catholic Church. Thus, Protestants believe that forgiveness may be extended and announced by those other than Catholic priests. It’s one of the reasons we don’t need to delete the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “… and forgive us our sins as WE forgive those that sin against us.”
Click to expand...
Your response reflects an arrogance of misunderstanding, of simply parroting what you have been taught, versus looking at, reasoning through, and opening your heart to the direct and personal words of Jesus.
Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, did request and design a process for confession. If anyone is a christian, and they read this in the Bible, then how can they ignore His very request without being in disobedience? To use the prayer He taught us, The Our Father, against Him, in what is the arrogant part of your reply, to defeat what He clearly has requested is without a clear thought out, fully understood christian response, it has to be a “this is what I was taught” response.
The Our Father is not a prayer used to avoid the sacrament of confession. The phrase you quote is His reminder that if we cannot go to Him for forgiveness if we do not also forgive. And guess where He wants us to come to Him to ask for forgivenss? To His priests as He has so spoken and directed.
Think about WHO Jesus is, and think about who YOU are, and then contemplate His request and design for confession, and ask yourself, are you more knowledgeable than Jesus such that you can add to or delete from His words and requests?

May God’s grace and mercy through the Holy Spirit come upon you and enlighten your heart and soul to His truth. In Jesus name and with the assistance of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I pray.
 
Carlan said:
Yes,that is what a practicing Catholic would do in his heart at the moment of repentance, However the Scripture does tell his Apostles( the priests) they are to give forgiveness in his name . Is that not what the Scripture is saying?

John20:22-23 says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”
Then he breathed on them and said:
“Receive the Holy Spirit, if you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven them;
If you hold them bound, they are held bound.”
Jesus gave his Church this sacrament of reconciliation, to deal with repentance and forgiveness. He gave his priests the authority to forgive in the sacrament through Him.
Carlan
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Carlan,

I ask God for forgiveness for my sins. I’m confident that my sins are forgiven because I have faith in Christ. That’s why HE died. John 20 is not referring to any particular person forgiving sins on their own. Sin itself can only be forgiven by GOD. Christ’s instructions here refer to the Apostles ability to announce that forgiveness of sin is now available to all who confess Jesus as their savior. That’s why we don’t read anything about one on one confession in scripture. It just never happened.

With that being said I think confession as it’s practiced in the Catholic church is very beautiful. When one openly confesses their sins it makes it real. Think of how much harder it is to actually tell someone you committed adultery versus just confessing to GOD. Getting sin out in the open brings about accountability. But in all the years I attended confession a Priest never announced that he forgave me. It was always because of the work of Christ solely that forgiveness was granted. But we must also repent of our sin which many people forget.

PEACE
 
Carlan said:
Yes, Josiah, I do understand that some Protestant Doctrine calls for confession and forgiveness by their Pastors through Jesus. And that is good,It works for Catholic Christians;)🙂
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Its not by “the Pastors” unless you consider it a Priesthood of all believers.
 
Carlan said:
A Christian will say he intends to do good, but will rationalize and then turns around and does wrong .Sin involves self deception, and when one has been kidding oneself, by what means does he arrive at the conclusion that self deception has stopped ?.Protestism does not seem to offer any helpful way for the sinner to cope with guilt and reform.Carlan
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Dearest friend,

I do think that Protestantism does offer a way of dealing with sin.
I cannot speak for all Protestant denominations, but I will answer for mine and try to be as exact as possible.
We do not have something that would be comparable to the sacrament of penance, that is true. We usually won’t see someone to confess our sins to, but there is enough room for confession apart from this.
When I got saved I confessed my sins to God and turned away from them. I also talked to a Pastor about this. Nowhere does it state that we cannot have spiritual guidance in our walk with Christ. This first confession and repentance is just the beginning.
It is advised to confess one’s failures to God every day and the average prayer should have this included too. If we confess our sins to God and are aware of them we are able to correct our behavior.
There is however always a possibility to seek advice from a pastor or a mentor. As a matter of fact we are about to start a mentorship program at our church right now. Mature Christians are helping out younger Christians in their spiritual walk.
Sometimes it is just a great thing to talk about the issues and that is where spiritual guidance comes in.

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever.

In Him,
Janet
 
MatthewBerkeley said:
Could I suggest you read this thread,
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=406160&highlight=absolution+v+forgiveness
especially the second post, Fr David’s explanation of the difference between forgiveness and absolution - something I wasn’t aware of until recently.
God bless:)
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Thank you Matthew, for referring me to that thread and Father Davids post. I had never been there, what a great post ,
I hope all will go there and read it.:thumbsup:Carlan
 
tweetymom said:
I for one go directly to the Father thru Jesus and ask forgivness. Sometimes I am convicted as soon as I sin and other times when I am praying and am alone with God.
Click to expand...
Great answer! That is how I deal with sin in my life too. When I confess to the Father through Jesus, I know that he hears me and the blood of Jesus cleanses me.

(1 John 1:9) “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
 
AmericanJosiah said:
Jesus never limited the call to or authority to forgive to the ordained clergy of The Catholic Church. Thus, Protestants believe that forgiveness may be extended and announced by those other than Catholic priests. It’s one of the reasons we don’t need to delete the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “… and forgive us our sins as WE forgive those that sin against us.”
Click to expand...
Julian0404 said:
The Our Father is not a prayer used to avoid the sacrament of confession. The phrase you quote is His reminder that if we cannot go to Him for forgiveness if we do not also forgive. .
Click to expand...
Correctomundo.

If a person A sins against another (B), is that not a sin both against that person B and a sin against God? When you forgive another person for what they’ve done to you, you are not forgiving them for their sin against God. I don’t know of any Protestants who see forgiveness in the way AJ has described.
 
In the Lutheran Church every service has a confession of sins. The older one is:

“We confess that we are in bondage to sin, and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart, we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. For the sake of your son, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name. Amen.”

The pastor then declares the forgiveness of sins. Lutherans, unknown to many Catholics, also have (although not often used) individual, private confession.
 
rep140 said:
One of my favorite writers, Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer had this to say:

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession”. (Cost of Discipleship)

“In confession we break through we break through to the true fellowship of the cross of Jesus Christ, in confessionn we confirm and accept our cross.” (Life Together)
Click to expand...
This is most certainly true, and Lutherans recognize it. Luther expresses the same thoughts - see my signature.

Jon
 
Why do you think that protestants got rid of confession to priests?

That’s a great question. When this thread came up I googled Luther and confession and found something interesting. Luther did not like the rules of Catholic confession, but he still believed in confessing sins to a priest/minister. He bemoaned the fact that people had gotten away from this type of confession.

I think that Protestants got away from confession for the same reasons many Catholics don’t go to confession. It is hard to do. I posted earlier something from Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran who believed in confession. He compared it to suffering with Christ’s cross.
If you’ve ever done something really bad you are really carrying a cross when you wait in line for the confessional.

BTW one thing that Luther didn’t like was specifying the number of times you commited a sin. This led to imperfect confessions because you might have forgotten the exact number. Everything I’ve read about Luther suggest great scrupulosity.
 
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