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A Lay Cistercian Looks at Spiritual Reality
MY TOP TEN FAVORITE: Daily Sins and Failings
Now you have done it, you must be thinking. Here is a topic no one wants to talk about but actually dictates how we behave within ourselves and outside with others. In one of my Lectio Divina sessions (Phil 2:5), while reflecting on Christ emptying himself out for us, I thought about how he was like us in all things but sin. What sins? As we learned in Grade School, Sins, a kitchen or laundry list of actions we do that are mortal or venial? Who is to say what is a sin and what is not? It is quite a complex topic and adds to the mix of Satan and temptation. You get a seemingly Medieval approach to spirituality that is caught up in not doing certain human behaviors on a list made up by dodgy old men in the past. That is certainly one way to look at a sun-centered approach to life, preoccupied with not stepping on the mine of life in fear of being blown up. If you have this approach to spirituality and step on a mine, and nothing happens, then after a while, you begin to lose respect for sin and may fall away from the true meaning of having in you the mind of Christ Jesus.
Before I give you my list of top ten favorites, let’s go over some assumptions I have about sin and other related issues. Since this is my blog, I have the luxury of giving you my opinion on the subject. You have the luxury of attaching value to my thoughts or not. Choose wisely! Remember, this is all part of my Lectio Divina meditation.
ASSUMPTION ONE: THE GENESIS EFFECT. I can’t think about sin or its consequences without going back to that marvelous, archetypal story of being human. If you remember Genesis Chapters 2 and 3, it is the story of creation, giving parameters by God and Adam and Eve, and their betrayal by wanting to be God. The Devil is also in the mix to muddy up Adam and Eve’s thinking. If you can pick it apart, Genesis is an excellent commentary on human foibles and failings. Here are some things that I thought about sin and grace.
God had a garden (I guess that was Heaven). In it were all the delights a person could ask for. It is the place God made for all creation. God’s garden was good. But God had a problem. Who could he get to manage his garden and take care of all his animals and plants? Being God, that was no problem. He just made someone, even taking him from the soil (Adama), and then he stood back and said to himself that something was missing, so He took a rib from Adam’s side and made a helper for him to tend the garden, someone so that Adam would not be lonely, someone to make little Adams and Eves. It takes two to tango, not one. Adam was good, not evil, because God cannot create Evil. St. Paul in Romans Chapter 5 speaks of sin coming into the world through one man and through sin death.
Can’t you just imagine a Bedouin-like tent with a fireplace and little children sitting around it with their grandpa, listening to him tell a story of why Grandma had to die and why they had to suffer cold, hunger, and even death themselves? This is an oral tradition handed down through the centuries. St. Paul uses it to contrast Adam and Eve with Christ and the place of sin.
ASSUMPTION TWO: Sin means I completely missed the point. Thinking that sin is just like a laundry list of things you do or don’t do is one of the big wins Satan has over humans. Sin is not a list of offenses, like speeding tickets or hitting another car in the parking lot. Sin is about relationships. The Ten Commandments are principles of right relationships. It is about your personal integrity. If you don’t do them, you not only break the relationship, but you begin to think that what you do is okay. You become God. Sin is missing the mark. Missing the mark is all about putting up the correct target. Putting up the correct target is all about knowing what is right and wrong. Knowing right from wrong is the sin of Adam and Eve. Shooting the bow to hit the target is moot if it is the wrong target. That is sin.
ASSUMPTION THREE: Every sin has consequences. You have to pay something to someone if you sin, in this case, God. We call that debt reparation or making up in us with a grace that we abandoned in sin. Sin is not just a one-time activity, although it can be that. Jesus does not condemn us for our sin, as in Matthew 11, but he adds, “…sin no more.” Do you see the implications of this statement? God knows humans don’t always do what they say. God knows us so well that he gave us a way to make all things new. Forgiveness of sins is another way of saying I want to start again. Like a diet, once you break it, you have no alternative but to start over again (or abandon it entirely).
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Revelation 21:5-12 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) 5 And the one seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also, he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. (emphasis mine) |
Here are my top ten sins, along with where they are found in Scripture. I base them on their gravity and the toxicity they bring to the human heart. No one can serve two Masters. St, Benedict writes in Chapter 4 of His Rule,
“(41) To put one’s trust in God.
(42) To refer what good one sees in himself, not to self, but to God.
(43) But as to any evil in himself, let him be convinced that it is his own and charge it to himself.
(44) To fear the Day of judgment.
(45) To be in dread of Hell.
(46) To desire eternal life with all spiritual longing.
(47) To keep death before one’s eyes daily.
(48) To keep a constant watch over the actions of our life.
(49) To hold as sure that God sees us everywhere.
(50) To dash at once against Christ the evil thoughts which rise in one’s heart.” (emphases mine)
In my struggle to move from self to God, Chapter 4 provides me with a daily examination of conscience, against which I can measure myself to see if I have in me the mind of Christ Jesus. The difference between what I hope to be and where I am in my struggle to seek God where I am and as I am. Conversio mores (conversion of life) is my constant objective, Day and night.
ASSUMPTION FOUR: Since it comes from the archetypal choice of Adam and Eve, every sin has these components.
- It must be a sin, or to put it in our vernacular, what you do if you are an archer must automatically cause you to miss the mark.
- God chooses what is good or bad. In Genesis, God is the grand gardener and hired Adam and Eve to be his caretakers. He told them that they were good and all creation was good.
- You must know it is wrong. God warned them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good or evil. If you do this, you will surely die, says the narrative.
- Knowing this is against God’s laws, you must freely choose against God and in favor of yourself.
- Since you break God’s laws, all sin is social; it has consequences that affect others, even if you disagree with that. The two types of sins in the early Church were those that cut people off from the social covenant you have with the community of the faithful and those which just damage your Spirit and cause you to fail in your efforts to have in you the mind of Christ Jesus. Forgiveness of sins is also social, in that the Sacrament of Reconciliation is a public prayer and not an individual devotion, even if you are in private with a priest. Chapter 4 of St. Benedict’s Rule lists these activities that, if we do them, Christ will increase, and we will decrease.
Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, not only as inspirational reading on the nature of what it means to be human redeemed in the blood of the Lamb but also what our heritage, the heritage you must protect, is.
“II. GOOD ACTS AND EVIL ACTS
1755 A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself (such as praying and fasting “in order to be seen by men”).
The object of the choice can vitiate an act in its entirety. There are some concrete acts – such as fornication – that it is always wrong to choose, because choosing them entails a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.
1756 It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder, and adultery. One may not do Evil so good may result from it.
1757 The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the three “sources” of the morality of human acts.
1758 The object chosen morally specifies the act of willing accordingly as reason recognizes and judges it good or evil.
1759 “An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention” (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). The end does not justify the means.
1760 A morally good act requires the goodness of its object, of its end, and of its circumstances together.
1761 There are concrete acts that it is always wrong to choose because their choice entails a disorder of the will, i.e., a moral evil. One may not do Evil so that good may result from it.”
TOP TEN SINS HUMANS MAKE
What follows are ten of the sins I hold to be those holding me back from having in me the mind of Christ Jesus (Phil 2:5) and against which I am tempted the most. You may have a different set or even more of them.
SIN NUMBER ONE: Idolatry. “I want to be god.”It is no accident that worshipping idols is the number one sin. It is an archetypal sin of Adam and Eve, the one activity is forbidden to them because they could not achieve it, yet they chose themselves as God over their Creator. It sounds like they were out of their mind when you think of it. That is what sin is, not thinking clearly, not putting God as their center. False gods are the number one sin in the Genesis story and all succeeding behaviors. The Israelites worshipped the Golden Calf, even as Moses came down from Sinai to bring them God’s own commands. The whole of the Scriptures is to tell us what happens when we choose ourselves as God, such as living in the world rather than in the Spirit. The Israelites, time and time again, turned from God and worshipped false gods, like Baal and others. Even Christ was affected by sin but did not commit sin because there is no sin in God. He was tempted in the desert three times (all of these to tempt God, not man) and once in the Garden of Gethsemane (this temptation, “Do I really have to do this, Father?,” was to tempt his human self, something we know all too well). God tells us what is sinful or where not to step to avoid the minefields. Either God is God, or we are God. No one can serve two masters.
SIN NUMBER TWO: Idolatry. “I am the center of the universe.” Thinking that you are the moral compass for the world. Genesis is all about God as the moral compass for the world. Thinking that everyone has the right to choose is vastly different than believing that what you choose is right. What makes right and wrong? In the Garden of Eden, what was the one thing forbidden to Adam and Eve? Eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and Evil, or being the one who determines good and evil. God gave us the commandments of maintaining a relationship with God (the first three commands) and keeping the tribes from killing each other with pride and jealousy, who is boss, and who is God. Jesus fulfilled these relationship commands by giving us only one command: love one another as I have loved you. In the O.T., you keep the covenant if you keep these commands. In the N.T., you fulfill the Law and the Prophets if you love one another. How do we know what love is? (Philippians 2:5-12) It is that Christ loved us first.
SIN NUMBER THREE: Idolatry. “Beware of false teachers who use familiar words and activities.” Do you notice a pattern here? Remember when St. Paul was trying to write to the Church who were having problems with the Christ preached by various persons? The Church sinned by missing the whole point of conversion to Christ in their lives. This was the idolatry of pride, just as clearly as Adam and Eve. The authority is not Paul, Cephas (Peter), or Apollos, but Christ alone. I would like you to reflect on the whole page from I Corinthians to get the context. The Church is never without internal conflict (heresy) or individuals who think they are Paul, Cephas, or Apollos, even in our own Day. Beware of Churches that bear the name of their founder. There is only one Church that legitimately bears the name of the one who founded it.
On Divisions in the Corinthian Church3 And so, brothers and sisters,[a] I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? 4 For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human? 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. 9 For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building. 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. 14 If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only through fire. 16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?[b] 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. 18 Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21 So, let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. |
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16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [d] Peter’s Declaration about Jesus13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah,[c] the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter,[d] and on this rock[e] I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven.” 20 Then, he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was[f] the Messiah.[g] |
One of the biggest challenges for any human is giving away power or trusting in authority. St. Benedict’s Rule has a chapter devoted to obedience. Obedience, to be effective, must be based on humility, another chapter in his Rule.
When I read the Holy Rule, I find it striking that the various Charisms Benedict, humility, obedience, and treating the person in front of you as Christ actually mitigate or help me be aware of my failings in authority. I remember reading about one of the Cardinals (name withheld) railing against what Pope Francis was proposing on how we should be environmental stewards of the world (second Adam and Eve). Authority is authority. Pope Francis was not speaking infallibly but as a teacher of the Church Universal. Humility allows us to listen to Christ speaking to us now, not twenty centuries ago. Remember who chose the Pope. It was not you but the Holy Spirit.
The sin here is far more than breaking any rule made by someone else; it goes against the core of who is God, you or God. This is the sin that says I have authority over my body, I am the center of moral thinking, and what is meaningful to me is what is moral. It flies in Chapter 4 of the Rule, where St. Benedict asks his monks and nuns to deny themselves to follow Christ.
SIN NUMBER FIVE: Idolatry. My body is mine to do what I want with it. This is a sin of pride, the core of all severe sins. My favorite saying comes to mind: “I am not you, you are not me; God is not you, and you, most certainly, are not God.” If this is true, then all matter, time, and energy come from God in ways we don’t yet comprehend. In the Old Testament, people could not take the life of another without being cast out of the tribe. At the core of modern morality is the sacredness of human life. Life is not sacred because of anything you do, but God is the author of all life. God makes the laws and the rules to allow the covenant to be sustained among the people.
What would happen if there were no humans, only animals, dinosaurs, and birds? What would be moral? The strong would eat the weak. Is that immoral? The strong would dominate the weak. Is that immoral? All life follows the natural law, or what happens as a natural consequence of just being alive. Life is natural when everything acts in its nature. When humans came on the scene, there were problems with humans wanting to pervert the natural law and do their thing. This is why we have the book of Genesis and the Genesis Effect. Genesis reminds us that humility and obedience to God are critical to human behavior. The problem comes when people don’t believe that God exists, so the default for moral certitude is Adam and Eve (or you).
As a Lay Cistercian, I must deny myself daily and take my cross to follow Christ.
SIN NUMBER SIX: Idolatry. “Do what I say, not what I do.” Even St. Benedict (c. 540 A.D.) cautioned his monks about an Abbot who acts differently than he talks. “9 Do not gratify the promptings of the flesh (Gal 5:16); 60 hate the urgings of self-will. 61 Obey the abbot’s orders unreservedly, even if his own conduct–which God forbid–be at odds with what he says. Remember the teaching of the Lord: Do what they say, not what they do (Matt 23:3).” https://christdesert.org/rule-of-st-benedict/chapter-4-the-tools-for-good-works/ This sin means I have two faces that I present to the public, the other one that I show to only a few people, such as my spouse or family.
The sins that are invisible to others or perhaps even to me are those that trip me up. If I make a promise as a Lay Cistercian and then break it by ignoring it or acting contrary to what I swore before God and the abbot (abbess), then I live a lie. Lying to self means thinking one thing in your heart and doing another in practice.
Over and over, Christ cautions his followers to mean what they say. You cannot love God and mammon. Over and over, we continue to get the message and fail to sustain our resolve to do good.
SIN NUMBER SEVEN: Idolatry. Happiness means doing what benefits me. Doing what makes me happy is the purpose of my life. So, what is the problem? While it is true that I am the center of my own Universe, I have reason and the ability to choose to make my world and my life better. Nothing wrong with that. How can I reach the next level if I realize that life is more than just what I see and my limited time on earth? I don’t possess or know where to get the energy to raise me up to the next level of my evolution. The Christ Principle is the sign of contradiction that allows me to offer the one thing that God gave me at birth that he does not have, reason and free will. To possess life, I must give it away. To live, I must die to myself. What can that possibly mean?
The “argumentum ad hominem” thrown up by followers of the Great Accuser is that Christ, especially, is against any pleasure in life. No true. What the Church is for is not making pleasure the center of why you are. The news Christ came to bring us is that pleasure or pain is neither good nor bad, but it is not powerful enough to place at your center to sustain you in the battle of free will.
SIN NUMBER EIGHT: Idolatry. “It’s only sex!” If the sexual drive is an integral part of all living things, including humans and God created humans, why do we think sex is nasty?. The answer is it isn’t bad, but, like love or any other human emotion, we need to control it. If we lack control or can’t control sex according to the parameters of our human nature, then the most dominant urge we have will kill what remains of our aspirations to always be what is noble and the highest result of our choices. We are not animals. We are not humans without a higher sense of what our sexuality can become. Remember, “No one can tell me what to do.” That goes for my sexual preference or whatever I think fulfills my sexual feelings and needs. The problem is not that humans need limits to their sexuality, but from where do we get the moral compass that says what is right and what causes us to become more like an animal than what our nature intended. Choice plays a crucial part in this movement toward being fully human. We can choose to be the source of what is good or bad, or we can choose to use the guidance that God has provided us in The Christ Principle to keep us from slipping back into animality.
Suppose the Genesis account of the tree of the knowledge of good and Evil is paramount to all moral choices. What is good or bad is the “take away” from Genesis. In that case, there is a difference between our ability to choose and the various options that choice provides with the help of our reason. Being a loving owner of the Garden of Eden, God hires Adam and Eve to tend his garden and take care of its animals. They are not animals. God gives Adam and Eve specific instructions not to eat the fruit of this tree because if you do, you will die. Enter Satan, a fallen angel whose cardinal weakness was that he did not want to do what God told him. Sounds like Satan is living today. Freedom to choose something against God without coercion is not the same as choosing an option without consequences. You can’t have a choice if there is only one option. That we are free to choose is the test of freedom from restriction. There are always consequences to any choice we make.
In Genesis, the Snake gives Eve an option that they will be gods if they eat this fruit. It is significant that Eve ate the fruit first, then gave it to Adam. Buried somewhere in the recesses of this ancient myth of the origins of choice are the emotions of Eve: jealousy, pride, envy, covetousness, seeking wealth, prestige, and being better than someone else. These emotions are woven into the very fabric of what it means to be human. Eve is the archetype of every human. The choices behind Adam selecting the fruit are all of the above, plus power, ego, lying, and denying what you did. Adam is the archetype of all humans who choose anything. It is what you select that is either good or evil. Genesis points out to its readers that God is the way, the truth, and the life.
The consequences of sin are dissonance in all reality. There is sin on the cosmic scale. God gave of Himself to bring resonance to all creation. Philippians 2:5. Christ takes away the world’s sin with his death on the cross and restores cosmic equilibrium. Baptism is when Christ accepts me as an adopted son (daughter of the Father), and I respond back.
SEX IN THREE UNIVERSES
Physical Universe: includes all matter, time, physical energy, and gases, including animals and humans. The unseen but felt urge to propagate the species within each of us. This urge is not bad or evil; it is just part of us. Humans have that. Sex is not nasty but an integral part of who we are. Like Genesis, humans have always had a difficult time managing it.
Mental Universe: With the introduction of human reasoning and free choice, things get complicated. Sin has not entered the world through one man, says St. Paul. Romans 5. Humans must now choose between two or more goods in each lifetime or between good or Evil. With our heritage from DNA, humans make choices but now, with emotions, sexual urges to propagate or feel intense pleasure from all kinds of sexual arousal, and it may or may not be good, depending on what each person puts at their center. All choices have consequences, intended or unintended.
Spiritual Universe: This is the opposite of what the world teaches about sex. You must die to yourself to rise above your animalistic tendencies. It takes work. It is difficult. The choice is sometimes between what is right and what is easy. Sexual promiscuity is always the easy way out. Jesus is the way out of all this chaos. He is the truth, that if placed in our center as The Christ Principle, doesn’t make our poor choices or sins disappear, but instead allows us access to the energy of God through the Holy Spirit. We join a School of Love (St. Benedict’s Rule and Cistercian practices and charisms interpret what being a member of this school means. We are citizens of two Jerusalems while on earth. One is the Jerulamen, that has citizenship in the world and uses a reality without God as the basis for discovering what it means to be human. The New Jerusalem means we are citizens of the kingdom of Heaven and are adopted sons and daughters of the Father. All we do while on earth is to discover what adoption means are live a life that will bring us to fulfillment of our human nature.
There is no marriage or giving in marriage in Heaven, says Christ. There is no gender or racial superiority, nor even one religion superior over any other one. There is no homosexuality in Heaven, nor is there any heterosexuality. Love is all there is. God is One, and there is One Lord, One Baptism. The sum of who you are, what made you make decisions, and how you finally figured out how sexual urges help you become the person you are as you stand before the Throne of the Lamb. Lest you think that your gender and racial and sexual orientation are not necessary, You would not be who you are as the fulfillment of your life were it not for the choices you make with your gender, the insights that your race gave you that make you unique not only in the world but also among your race, how your sexuality informed if God is the center of your life or some other false god.
Sex is good, but not all sexual activities align with what God says is good. We have choices about that.
Humans corrupted what nature had intended and introduced what is evil, what is good about our sexual urges, and how we should use them.
SIN NUMBER NINE: Idolatry. “There is no evil, only bad choices.” We all have made choices that have left us with eggs on our faces. Experimentation is one way that humans have to know what is good for us from the alternative. Another way is to listen to Christ, who gives us a map we can use to walk through the minefields of life without stepping on a mine. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is a way for us to acknowledge that we bade a wrong choice, and maybe a sinful one, but that we recognize that it is terrible for us, and we ask God to make all things new in us, once more.
If the world promotes that there is no evil, no god, no lifting up of our nature to what is intended, then life is about finding out what hurts us or makes us stronger. The only thing that makes all things fall into place is The Christ Principle.
Sin and grace are not equal. Evil and good are not on the same level. As depicted in legends and some myths, Satan and God are not equal gods. Evil happens because either angels (Lucifer and followers) or humans (those who place Evil at the center of their lives) choose it to be so.
If Heaven begins with your adoption as sons and daughters of the Father, so does Hell when you put Evil as your center.
I can just picture Lucifer welcoming guests to Hell forever with that Hound of the Baskerville’s laugh lasting through eternity. “You believed me when I told you there was no evil, only what you thought was right. I lied! Claim your inheritance, you fool. You chose wrong.”
SIN NUMBER TEN: Idolatry. “I don’t have to take responsibility for my behavior.” An insidious sin seduces its believers into thinking that they can sin bravely because they have been doused with the grace of Baptism, like the world being converted by Sherman-Williams paint. Matthew 25 paints a quite different picture of responsibility for cotton candy Christianity which tastes good but has no nourishment. Everything you do will be known at the last judgment. You think you ask for forgiveness, and God automatically forgives. Actually, that is true, with one caveat. You must be accountable for what you do? This is why I am a penitential person as a Lay Cistercian. I constantly seek reparation for my sins, even though they are confessed and forgiven.
LEARNING POINTS
Sex comes from God and, like all creation, is not evil.
Humans view sex from many different perspectives. (See Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving, which gives perspective on Love and Sex.) Some of them are authentic, and some are not.
All sin is idolatry at its root. All grace is love at its root. Christ says I am the way, the truth, and the life. How you make that part of how you approach the Father through Christ makes you accept your adoption as a son (daughter) of the Father.
Resist basing your life around not committing sin. Instead, “have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.”
Grow deeper in Christ by shedding your false self as these sins indicate.
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