Confessions of a Perfect Sinner

Confessions of a Perfect Sinner

 By TreAnna B.

            I recently posted a confessions article on my personal blog. This one is a little different though.

As the titles suggests, I am going to give you the confessions of a Perfect Sinner. You may be wondering how that oxymoron even works. Well, I'll tell you.

            We are all perfect sinners. We spend each day of our lives committing sin, whether we are aware of it or not. Therefore we are perfectly sinful.

            So what is my first confession as a perfect sinner?

I don't like holding this title.

            Does anyone? I mean there aren't many people who like to be told that what they are doing is wrong. Holding this title is essentially being reminded every day of our lives that we are doing something wrong. That there is something wrong with ourselves.

            Don't freak out just yet. I'm going somewhere with this.

            Let me try to explain this oxymoron to you a little better. Being in the state of perfection means that there is no flaw. That's almost impossible for us to think about because there aren't many things in our lives that can be dubbed as 'perfect'.

            Being in the state of sin means that we do something that goes against God's word. In some area of our lives, we rebel against God. It doesn't have to be a big thing. A lie is considered a sin.

            So when we put these two states together we have humanity. Sin is the one thing that I can say without doubt that we do perfectly. We do it every day of our lives,  and some days we do it without even realizing it.

            So we are perfectly sinful.

Confession: We don't have to let this title define us.

            Just because we are given a title doesn't mean that this title has to immediately be ingrained in ourselves.   We don't have to be ruled by it.

            We will never reach perfection. Jesus was the only man to walk the earth that ever will, but we shouldn't give up just because of being 'perfectly sinful'.

            Think about it this way: If someone called you a nerd because you read all the time, would you let that title define you? Would you stop reading because of it? Probably not.

            In the same way, we should not stop trying to be perfect just because we recognize that we are sinful creatures. Romans 3:23 says “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...” Yet in Matthew 5:48, Jesus says to “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” These two verses almost seem to contradict each other, however they have a point. Even though we have sinned and don't deserve what God has given us, we shouldn't stop working to try to deserve it.

Stopping Gossip

Stopping Gossip

Kaitlyn F.

Many of us who go to high school have to deal with some sort of high school drama. Whether it is boyfriend drama to best friend drama to enemy drama, we all encounter it at some point in our high school careers. Most of the drama starts with someone gossiping. Then that one gossip spreads to the whole school, and that creates drama between friends and enemies. The definition of gossip is "casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true." Gossip mostly not being true, it creates problems in our lives that we don't need. Proverbs 26:20 says,

"Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down." 

Without gossips, many of the arguments that happen, or the drama that goes around the school wouldn't exists. But every time you gossip about someone, it is like adding wood on a fire that is already out of control. If you are in an argument with someone, keep the argument between the two of you. When you go off and tell your friends, and then the other person goes off and tells their friends, then we drag more people into the problem then what is needed. With that many people involved, it becomes exponentially harder to find a resolution for the problem.

I know that by now, it has become a habit for most of us to gossip, but that isn't a good habit to have. I ask that as we start this school year, that we could break some of those habits of gossiping. It will be hard, but with God's help it is not impossible. You can then save a lot of hurt feelings, and it will create less high school drama, and it may allow us to focus on school and just having a good time. This is my senior year in high school, and I don't want to remember my last year, by all the drama that happened that year. Without the drama, school can be a fun place to go to learn and hang out with friends. The thing is that the high school drama, creates an environment that most of us dread to go to. We can change that environment just by changing the things that we tell people. I don't know about you, but I want to go to a place that has limited drama and, I can actually go and enjoy my day, and not sit in class just waiting for the day to end. Let's make a change this year to stop the gossip coming from our mouths, and speak of encouragement and love to the people around us.

Extending Grace

Extending Grace

By Rachel S.

 Over Christmas last year, I got a kitten. She is an adorable little gray and white baby. (Not as baby as she was ten months ago but, you know.)

When we first got her, it was very evident that the name the animal shelter had given her was not going to work. They had called her Grace which is a great name! But not for this kitten. She is so awkward and clumsy! She can’t turn a corner to save her life and if she ever figures out how to walk a straight line, I think that I’ll introduce her some kind of unknown to her kitty treat.

Anyway, because my little, Grace was obviously not very graceful, we re-named her, “Precious.” (What where we thinking? My family should never name anything after a virtue….)

For the record, my kitten is Precious. When she is sleeping.

Along with being extremely adorable, and clumsy, she is also very naughty.

Every morning we have to peel her off the curtains, take her off the table, I usually end up walking into the kitchen and hear a thump-which would be the sound of her jumping off the counter. Occasionally I find myself wiping paw prints off the floor, from the ash in the fireplace that she got wet in the sink that found its self on the floor.

Yeah.

I’m thinking about un-re-naming her.  Back to Grace. Remember that she is just as clumsy as the day we got her, here is why, because every day I have to extend grace to her.

I was thinking about this whole naming thing, as she was sleeping soundly (and yes, looking adorable) on my bed. I was sprawled out on the floor writing and here is what came to mind. I am not good at extending grace.

There are times when I don’t want to extend grace to my kitten. I just want to throw her out and ask her what she thinks of that.

“I gave you mercy for your little naughties yesterday!” I long to yell at her. “Would you just behave yourself for one day?”

And it’s not just with my cat. I get tired of extending Grace to my brothers for all the times they drive me up a wall and I get tired of extending grace to people when they bug me.

I have been having a problem of extending grace recently. Sometimes it seems like I’m right, thus, the rest of the world must be wrong. I didn’t want to extend grace, but what I realized was that God extends grace to be every single day.

Lamentations 3:22-23 says this, “The LORD’s love never ends; his mercies never stop. They are new every morning.”

Every day, God hands out new grace to me, he just hands it to me!

In Romans chapter three 3:22-24, Paul tells the Christians this “God makes people right with himself thought their faith in Jesus Christ. This is true for all who believe in Christ, because all people are the same. Everyone has sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious standard, and all need to be made right with God by his grace which is a free gift.”

God gives out fresh grace. Every. Day. No matter what you have done and what you will do, he still loves you and gives more grace. No amount of bad stuff will ever separate you from the incredible love and grace of our father.

But you can only get this grace, thought Jesus Christ his son who came down from heaven to die for all of our sins. He died on a cross, but he didn’t stay dead! He rose from the grave three days later and now reigns at the right hand of the father, giving out grace.

It doesn’t mean that he likes the things that we do, but his blood covered our sins. He has washed them with his grace and his love!!!  

In conclusion, I have some… challenges to give out

Number 1: to practice extending grace. When someone bugs you, just think about the fact that you both are receiving grace.

Number 2: Even though God gives out grace freely and far behind what we could ever think or imagine it is important to grow closer to God. Because it’s just the truth that other people will. Drive. You. Nuts. And the only way that you can give out grace, is though Jesus and with we can’t extend grace without Jesus’ help.

Feel free to comment! I love reading what ya’ll have to say!!!

Rachel Schaus (in the house!)