Answer # 2

Question #2 is "How many good things should you do to make up for your sin?"

Answer:  None.  You can't make up for your sins by doing good things.  Not to say that doing good things is not a good idea.  But if you think about it, you really can't "make up for your sins."  For one thing, how do you decide what makes up for what sin?  Some churches have developed elaborate calculations to accomplish this.  But if we are in the business of determining what makes up for our sins, and then assigning or accomplishing it, haven't we made ourselves God?

Or, going down a different road...if you are "doing something" to make up for a sin, are you really doing it in the mind-set or with the heart you need to do it sincerely?  When we fought as kids, my mom made us "kiss and make up" instead of fight.  Believe me, I did what she said, but what I really wanted to do was continue fighting with my sister.  I had not yet straightened her out so she could enthusiastically adopt my position!  I still had work to do, for Pete's sake!!!!

When we said "I'm sorry," that made everything all better?  Whether our sin is a tiny infraction or a major, horrible act, how on earth can we "make up" for what we have done?

Addiction programs teach us to make amends for the wrongs we have committed.  That's a good thing. We need to make amends, probably more often than we would like to admit.  But making amends is not "making up for" our wrongdoing.

One more thought...if it is possible to make up for our sins, and if we are responsible for so doing, we spend (or should spend) a great deal of time and energy figuring out what we should do, trying to do it to the best of our ability, then constantly evaluating and second-guessing whether or not we achieved "making up." If the point of making up for our sins is to put us back into relationship with God and with each other, have we actually done that?  Or have we become incessantly and obsessively focused on the sin and the punishment instead of the relationships we were trying to mend?  Where has God gone in the equation?  And what if the person refuses to accept our "make up" efforts?  What then?

We simply can't make up for our sins by doing good things.  So what do we do?  We answer question #3.