The five Rs of forgiveness

Recognise that you've sinned: This means that you are bringing God back into the equation. When you sinned, when you stole, or lied or whatver, you turned your back on the Lord. Recognising you've sinned against God brings Him back into the equation, and in the equation is where He should be.

Remember who you are now: You're a child of God. The Lord rejoices over you with singing, He sent His Son to die for you, to suffer all he suffered so that you might be united. Thats who you are now. And sin no longer has power over you. Only when you let it. Only when you listen to it's whispers more than God's promises.

Repent of the sin: 'Walk back past the cross'. When we sinned we in effect went back to our old ways when our bodies where our god and our desires were the loudest voice in our spirit. So go back to the cross again, look at Jesus, and repent once more.

Renounce the sin: Talk to it. Tell it how much you hate it, and how much better you know Jesus is, how perfect His ways are and how awful sin is. Tell it that you want rid of it. And look again to Jesus.

Recieve forgiveness: Did Jesus come down from the Cross when you sinned? NO! In fact it was your sin that held Him there untill He died. As Luther said, we all walk around with nails in our pockets. The Cross happened. The ressurection happened. It is finished, we are dearly loved Children of God, and thats the end of the story. Being a Christian doesn't mean we suddenly magically stop sinning. It means we are being regenerated to be like Jesus, and that He won't stop once He's started a good work in you. So recieve forgiveness and get on with it. And do it quickly.

Also, beware of the first lie. The one that says 'this is ok, its nothing serious, and it'll be good'...because that seems to be the start of a horribly slippery slope far too often.