Sacraments

Holy Penance - Confession



	
	Confession is one of the seven sacraments of the Holy 
	Orthodox Church and probably the most misunderstood. 
	For many people, confession is something that they do 
	before they receive the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. 
	In other words, they cannot receive the Eucharist until 
	they confess their sins and receive absolution. This 
	is true, but this is not the sole reason we go to 
	confession. While it is true that we need to prepare 
	ourselves to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, it 
	is equally true that we need to look inward and examine 
	the life that we are leading and our relationship 
	with others.
	
	
	What is sin? Sin is living in ways and doing things 
	that separate us from God. In Greek, the word for sin, 
	hamartia, translates as "missing the mark" (target). 
	When we sin, we "miss the mark," and thus our lives 
	are leading us away from God. Think about this. 
	Consider the following: Have you ever been lost while 
	driving in a car? What do you do? Do you keep driving 
	and driving thereby getting more lost or do you pull 
	off the side of the road and ask for directions? You 
	guessed it! You pull over and ask for directions. This 
	is what confessions is!! Sometimes we get "lost" and 
	need to "pull over" and get spiritual directions from 
	our spiritual father, who is usually our priest. We 
	find "the mark" - Jesus Christ. When we confess our 
	sins, we tell them to God; as one prayer says, the 
	priest is but a witness. Our father confessor can help, 
	through, as we find the road back to God! Don't be 
	afraid of your priest. Only Jesus Christ never sinned, 
	and your priest won't judge you. He will always try to 
	show you the love of God.
	
	
	You should never go to confession unprepared. Before 
	you kneel and confess, you should look inside yourself 
	and face the truth about the life that you are leading. 
	In addition, you should also be sorry for the sins that 
	you have done and be ready to try to change your life. 
	Something is not right when we confess a sin and then 
	do nothing to try to stop doing it again. This is not 
	to say that you will never sin again if you go to 
	confession but you have to try real hard to pray to 
	God to give you strength not to sin again. God is a 
	good and loving God and He is always ready to give us 
	forgiveness and love, if we allow him into our hearts.
	




Today I decide to be free from all decisions


We always want to do the right thing, but we do the wrong 
thing when we do not make a decision about what to do. 
Decisions have power. Decisions have force. They usually 
take us to the exact place we need to be, exactly the way 
we need to get there. It is the wavering back and forth 
that is dangerous. It places us at the mercy of events; we 
fall prey to the choices people make for us. Since time 
and opportunity wait for no one, our lives will not stand 
still until we figure out what to do. The rightness of a 
decision is based on our ability to make the decision. When 
we weigh what we want against what we will have to do, a 
decision can be an effortless event. We must know what we 
will and will not do, what we can do and choose not to do; 
and decide in harmony with the things we know. The freedom 
from making a decision can only come after we have made 
the decision.


In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the 
right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing.




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