Persistent Wrongdoing Blocks Our Use of Divine Grace
If you are beloved of God, what does it mean to say that continuation in sin forestalls the fruits of God’s greatest gifts?
These fruits of God’s gifts are freely given but require of us preparation, repentance, humility, and prayer to see and attain to. This comes with much greater ease in deeper attachment to God, i.e. real faith in His plans (above our own). The value of these go beyond mere sin, once we are beyond the sin which plagued us so. We all receive grace by the very nature of our faith, but we must also first be willing to acknowledge our need for it but not forget its work, there is no gratitude for it in unrepentant sin. So here lies the tragedy of sin. It becomes an excuse and justification for our refusal to grow. It is not that sin itself prevents us from receiving God’s gifts; rather, sin becomes a substitute for growth we were designed for, a way of clinging to comfort while rejecting the call to transformation.
To repeat from Paradox of Progress: continuing in sin keeps us from doing greater good than we are doing now because it slows progress, and then piles on to stop it completely. This is a fundamental truth about human potential. Our capacity for goodness is shaped by our willingness to change for the better. Then a fundamental truth about human love is this: our ability to express our love is refined through the fires of self-discipline and spiritual growth.
Sin often masquerades as something else that feels necessary, even virtuous at times. It may be a habit that we have clung to for years, a pattern of behaviour that has become second nature. In its very persistence, it reveals itself as a form of spiritual laziness. For what is the purpose of sin if not to keep us from the work of becoming who we were meant to be, who God intended us to be?
Sin becomes a kind of spiritual prison, one that we build for ourselves through our own choices. And in this prison, we are cut off from the fruits of the divine gifts that could set us free. Cache 22, only broken by reaching out to that divine. Grace is liberation from the chains of our own making, we can just let go. Love for self instead becomes the desire to grow beyond ourselves and into the fullness of who we were created to be, and love for others the same for them. Could there be a deeper love by one human for another? Even in the darkest moments of rebellion, there could always exist a possibility of return, of fundamental change within. We are rightly taught condemnation is not the thing, but repentance is. Walk the path. This is how you love yourself best. Help others walk the path. This is how you love them best. The very act of changing in something, that first act alone in and of itself, begins to unlock the best use of the always present divine grace.