Being in a state of grace means that you have God's life in you.
How is this achieved? Firstly through baptism. Here one receives the Holy Spirit and one's sins are forgiven and one becomes part of God's household of which you spoke.
Can we lose the state of grace? Yes! Through a mortal sin. If we die in this state we go to hell!
What makes a sin mortal? It must be a serious matter, we must know it (or even mistakenly think it) to be a serious matter and we must consent to the sin.
What sins constitute serious matter? Some examples are: missing Mass on a Sunday or Holy Day of Obligation, sex outside of marraige, masturbation, pornography and even impure thoughts! Regarding impure thoughts it is important to understand the aspect of consent.
What is consent with regard to a mortal sin? This means that we are free to act and we give in to the action. So in the case of impure thoughts simply having an impure thought enter the mind does mean that one has consented to it. But should one etertain the thought and give in to it then one has consented and it is a mortal sin.
Regarding freedom of action an extreme example would be rape. The victim would not be guilty of a serious sin as they did not act freely.
Can we win back a state of grace if we have lost it? Yes! And here we touch again on the aspect of God's household and even more specifically being an active part of his Church.
There are two ways to win back a state of grace after mortal sin. The one is by a perfect act of love to God. This means one is sorry for what one has done only because it has offended God and not due to any loss on one's own part.
The other is by Confession to a Catholic priest. In Confession one tells the priest the number and kind of one's mortal sins and makes at least an imperfect act of contrition, where one is sorry for one's sins but not only due to the offence to God but also due to our loss. Then priest has power from God to forgive our sins!
This agrees with the Bible!
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