Confess it.

The Bible tells us, "If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness" (1 John 1:9). From the beginning, God wanted a family. He wants to have a relationship with you like a father does with his son. Sometimes we hurt our father. But we want to quickly apologize and make things right. It's the same with our Heavenly Father. The only way we can know what is right or wrong in this world is by what He has revealed to us through his Word. We also are able to know if we have done wrong through the conviction of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

In the book of Jeremiah, God said that he would make a new covenant with us and that he would write his law upon our hearts. When we sin or do something that God doesn't want us to do, we can feel a sense of guilt or sadness because his Holy Spirit is at work in our hearts. So if we do something that is wrong, we need to say we're sorry for that to our Heavenly Father. Then we need to make a decision not to do that thing anymore. If we have trouble committing that sin over and over again, we may need to ask God to give us the grace and the strength to overcome that sin.

We may also need to find someone like our parents or a pastor who can help us by being a friend that we can share our challenges with. You should always ask your parents who would be a person that you can trust to share these things. Another way that we can overcome sin is by spending time with on God's word (2 Timothy 2:15). King David said, "I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11). The word of God is powerful (Hebrews 4:12) and as we think on it are it starts to impact how we think and what we will desire to do in our lives. This is called renewing our mind according to the word of God (Romans 12:2).

God's powerful Word will actually start to change the way we think and change the things that we want to do or don't want to do. Another way to overcome sin is to spend time with God in prayer and in praise and worship. This builds up our relationship with the Lord and our affection for him. Over time, we fall so much in love with God that we don't want to do anything that will hurt Him.

God wants you to walk in victory and not face the sin (Romans 6:23). So take the time to read His word, then spend time in prayer and worship with the Lord, and soon you will see that those things that used to cause you to sin become less and less a part of your life. You will gain the victory as you walk with Jesus.

Because God loves us, He allows us to make decisions. When we make the wrong choice we make mistakes.

When God created humanity, He made us in His image and likeness with a free will, which means that He created us with the freedom to choose between right and wrong. God wanted a family. He didn't want robots. As a result, we are free to either follow after God's ways, or we can choose to rebel against the truths of Scripture.

Adam and Eve were given a choice in the Garden of Eden – and sadly, they chose to disobey God. After the fall, God set in motion a plan to redeem mankind through the loving sacrifice of Jesus – and all we have to do is “choose” to believe in Him and we will be saved. Once we are saved, we have to continually choose to obey God and follow in His ways.

However, we are all human and we sometimes make mistakes. The key to abundant life in Jesus is to recognize when we make a mistake, God has given us the free will to make that choice, then to ask God for forgiveness for our sin (1 John 1:9).

Scripture says, "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13). Speaking of friendship, the Bible declares, "A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need" (Proverbs 17:17). So the best way to be a friend to follow the golden rule: "Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you” (Matthew 7:12). And the key is to obey the First Commandment, which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matthew 22:37). Then the second commandment comes directly after, which is to love your neighbor as you love yourself (Matthew 22:39).

Someone once said that the way to have a full life is by observing the acronym J.O.Y., which stands for Jesus, Others, and then Yourself. When you walk with these priorities, you will be a true friend to others.

No.

I have good news! God is not angry with you. The Bible says, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Because Jesus took sin upon Himself on the cross, every believer who accepts Jesus Christ as his or her Lord and Savior becomes a child of God. The Apostle John writes, “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.” Romans 10:9 says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." By confessing Jesus as Lord and believing in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you become a part of the family of God – and there is nothing you can do to make God not want you to be in this family (Romans 8:15).

Because we are human, we all make mistakes and sin from time to time (Romans 3:23). You need to understand that this sin makes God sad, but He is not angry with you. God is sad because he knows that sin can harm you (Romans 6:23), and He does not want any harm to come to you. So when we sin, it is important that we quickly ask God to forgive us (1 John 1:9) and to cleanse us from all of our sins, both the ones we remember and even the ones we may have forgotten about.

Saying we're sorry to God for our sins is called repentance. The word “repent” in the Greek literally means to "change your mind." So when we repent for our sins, we are saying sorry to God, and we are promising that, by His grace and with His help, we will not do bad things anymore. But even if we sin again, we need to understand that God loves us. He's our Heavenly Father, and He wants us to ask for forgiveness so that He can bless us and protect us from any plans of the devil. God's love and forgiveness for us through Jesus sacrifice on the cross is one of the reasons why the Gospel is such Good News.

The older brother had stayed with his father. He was angry with his younger brother because he left. The older brother had the right heart. But he also had spiritual pride.

This brother obeyed the law. But he did not have the same love that his father had, and this was his weakness. As Christians, it can be very easy for us to fall into the same trap of spiritual pride that the older brother fell into. We can say, "Oh I love God, but I don't like people very much." But this shows a lack of maturity and a lack of understanding of what God desires for us in this life (1 John 4:20).

The Apostle John said that Jesus came in grace and truth (John 1:17). This is significant language because it shows that, with Jesus, grace was first and truth was secondary. Some Christians make the mistake of upholding truth without walking in grace and love. The Bible says, “Speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). In the importance chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul says, "If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:1-2).

The older brother understood and obeyed the law, but he did not understand the importance of love. As the father pointed out, this son who once was dead but now was alive (Luke 15:32). He had come back to his father, and that's all that mattered.

We need to make sure that we are not judging those who have been disobedient to our Heavenly Father, but instead we need to show the love and grace of God to these people who are often hurting inside. The Bible tells us, "Love never fails" (1 Corinthians 13:8) The father in the parable of the prodigal son had true love; when his rebellious son came home. he ran to meet him (Luke 15:20). Let's show the same kind of love to those in our lives who need to see their Heavenly Father and know his grace and his mercy.