Can't sin break your fellowship with God, even when you are saved?

Question

I know I feel guilty--and I feel a terrible soorow that I have done wrong against God. And I will want to repent and ask for God's forgiveness.

He has done SO MUCH FOR ME!

What I'm saying, is that you lose your fellowship with Him, but NOT your relationship to Him---as for His being my Father.

Answer 1

Yes, this is the Catholic concept of mortal and venial sins.

Sin is a deliberate thought, word, deed, or omission contrary to the eternal law of God.

A mortal sin is a grave infraction of the law of God that destroys the divine life in the soul of the sinner (sanctifying grace), constituting a turn away from God. For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must be present: grave matter, full knowledge of the evil of the act, and full consent of the will.

Most of the sins we commit are venial sins. Venial sin is a sin which does not destroy the divine life in the soul, as does mortal sin, though it diminishes and wounds it. Venial sin is the failure to observe necessary moderation, in lesser matters of the moral law, or in grave matters acting without full knowledge or complete consent.

However consistent unrepentant venial sins can slowly destroy your relationship with God and become mortal sin.

People die all the time with venial sins on their conscience and they will go to heaven.

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

Catholics do not believe in being "saved", but in "being saved".

Salvation is a life long process. It is not something that happens just because you have made an emotional commitment or have said a certain prayer.

Sin can definitely break your fellowship with God. If you sin often enough and the sin is serious enough, then that fellowship with God can be completely severed. Unless we restore that relationship, we are lost. It is absurd to think that a person who has willingly and purposely severed their relationship with God will still go to Heaven just becuase they had "accepted Christ as their Savior" earlier in life.

Answer 3

There are side effects of sin, yes.

However, nothing can ever break your Union with Christ. Once you are saved, the Bible says clearly that you can never walk, run, crawl, or fall out of the hand of God.

I John 3 talks about the children of God and the children of disobedience. If a person lives completely in rejection of God and His precepts, then repentance is necessary in order to be a child of God.

In your case, you sound like a Christian under the conviction that the Holy Spirit provides, so it isn't that you haven't got God in your life. You may have anxiety, doubts, and a lack of assurance of your security as a result of your sins. You may feel far away from God, even if your union with Christ is not affected. There are many symptoms of a life of sin.

Answer 4

No, it won't break your fellowship. It may break the good feeling of fellowship for a while.

In other words, if you sin, God will let you endure the consequences of that sin--earthly consequences and divine consequences. Sometimes the divine consequences are that God removes the pleasurable feelings associated with knowing him for a time. This is part of his justice--and if you accept it, or whatever else may happen as a result of your sin, with gratitude and humility, you can rest assured that the pleasurable feelings of fellowshipping with God will return at some point.

Answer 5

This is a sticky question. All of us mess up and make mistakes, but there is a slippery slope if you do it repeatedly without remorse.
The Bible tells us a righteous man falls and gets back up. Just because you made a mistake, God is not up there looking to push you away. Simply apologize, ask for help to avoid doing it again, and hold your head back up.
I think it becomes a problem when people repeatedly live in sin with no intention of changing. God looks at the motives more than the actions.

Answer 6

Yes you are correct. Nothing can cause you to loose your relationship with God. You may loose Him for a while, but I assure you, God cannot loose his possesion. You are sealed. You can loose your fellowship with God because of unrepentent and unconfessed sin. God will "turn His face" from you until you repent and confess, but, you will always be His child. I suggest that if you need reassurance that you will always be his child that you read the parabel of the prodical son. (Luke 15:11-31.)

Answer 7

If your relationship was broken off from God, you would not be able to repent as you do now. That is proof that God is in your heart convicting you; otherwise you would not care to change.

But please do not allow repentance to become a burden of guilt. That burden is what is meant to be given up to Christ on the cross. By forgiving yourself and your past, over and over, 77 times 77 if necessary, you will eventually replace these feelings with hope and wisdom of what to do to fulfill God's purpose for your life. The purpose is not to beat yourself up where you are crippled and unable to act. This is only temporary to humble you to seek truth and to detach from the past which otherwise weighs you down. So let it go. Forgive it and completely give it to God. Ask for wisdom and guidance to take steps to help yourself and others experiencing the same recovery process. Many others may benefit from fellowship with you in order to make it through the same. So your sacrifice and change of heart is a gift that will benefit not only yourself but others when you use this correctly for God's purpose and plan for your life.

Keep praying for healing, forgiveness and direction. How can you best learn and teach from your past to help prevent and correct the same problems from hurting other people in the future? See also the book 'Healing' by Francis MacNutt or contact his healing ministry at http://www.christianhealingmin.org Whatever steps you take to heal will help you and others to be even closer to God. You are getting closer not farther, because of your commitment to truth.

Answer 8

Yes, being saved and being in fellowship are two different things. We all sin even after being saved. When we do sin we are to repent and tell God that we are sorry and ask for strength not to repeat it. That is why you are feeling sorry/guilty...God is telling you to come to Him. Receive His healing and guidance and move on. Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you. Once you repent remember to forget that sin and remember it no more, as God remembers it no more. In other words, don't dwell on the past, move forward to Him.

Answer 9

i don't think that sin can break your fellowship with god because if it did the way the world is today he would have ended it in 2000 when every thing got worse. he is not tired yet i am sure whatever u did it is not as bad as killing someone.

Answer 10

Hi, it has to have an effect when Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more,or else He would not have said it in the first place.
I believe breaking just one of the commandments is a serious sin and would break our friendship with God, or else the whole concept of sin and the price Jesus paid to redeem us to bring us back to the Fathers life of grace, would not make any sense.
the sacrifice of Calvary can not be a blank check, to freely commit sin whenever we please or it would be at best sacrilegious at worst utter betrayel of the light of the Holy Spirit Who reveals all done in secret.
sincere repentence is required in case of serious sin and the promise to turn away from such sin in the future,and we must throw ourselves on the mercy of God to aid us in this.