Forgive Us Our Sins

One of the greatest problems that we encounter in the world today is guilt: whether it’s guilt that is placed upon us; guilt that we place on ourselves; or, even more tragically, guilt that we burden others with. God knew this. He knew that, when we fell as humanity in Adam and Eve, that we would be carrying guilt, and that guilt deprived us of His kingdom. There was no way back for us. There was nothing we could do, and the only way to remove that was for Him to come in the Incarnation, to reclaim us, to restore us, to renew us, and to bring us back to Himself.

One of the major Sacraments we have in the Coptic Orthodox Church is that of repentance and confession. And that is comprised of three components:

We confess to ourselves that we have made a mistake.

We pray to our holy blessed and loving Father, and say to Him, as the prodigal son did, ‘I have sinned against you. I am repenting. I am returning. I need my sins to be forgiven’.

We go to a father of confession to confess and, through that, receive an absolution.

Through this process He forgives us, and that is the beautiful gift of God to us. It is forgiveness.

This is why, in the only prayer that our Lord Jesus Christ has taught us, the Lord’s Prayer, He makes this point pivotal. ‘Forgive us our trespasses/sins’. Because He knows that without that forgiveness, we’ll carry that burden of guilt, and it will continue to stifle us and to stop us from returning to Him. He is our Saviour, and He does want us to be saved. He wants us in His kingdom forever.

Pray for Five:

Pray for your five to discover the forgiveness that Jesus offers to them, the start of a new life.

By His Eminence Archbishop Angaelos, Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London and Papel Legate to the United Kingdom