Here is one of the largest issues in the Christian life: How do you handle your personal sin?  Or in one particular, how do you react when you fall?  Do we attempt to make up for sin by subsequent good actions, for example Bible reading and confessional prayer?  While it is quite clear that these actions do follow from a mourning of sin (1 John 1:9 essentially commands the believer to confess sins to God), in my mind I can confuse these actions as somehow atoning for my sin, somehow erasing and balancing out my past actions, somehow zeroing out debt owed to God.  It is exactly this trap that the people of Judah fell into during the last years before the Babylonian captivity.  Let us consider the historical record. Continue reading “Perverting the Means of Grace” →