Can God accept a couple who committed fornication in the past?
Question:
I accepted Christ three years ago, and I was committed to submit to him and to remain pure.
After a while, I started flirting with temptation and eventually sinned. My boyfriend was in the same position. We both served God and we both have our own testimonies, but we fell into fornication.
At this point, I feel spiritually dead, and I desire to get back into God's path. I still go to church, but I miss serving. My pastors are aware of what happened between us and have put us in discipline. I love my boyfriend a lot, and my heart's desire is to seek God once again and repent and make a commitment not to sin until we get married. We lost our virginity to each other, and we both want to spend the rest of our lives with each other. I just wonder if God accepts a couple who once sinned but repented. My question is if there still hope for us? Can we still get married although we sinned against God and everyone around us? I'm very young, and I know I still have a long life ahead of me. I want to pursue God and start all over again, but I still hope for a future with my boyfriend. We both want to turn to God again and hope we can still be with each other.
Answer:
All sins can be forgiven if a person repents of his sins and acknowledges that he was wrong. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:9). Repentance is not being sorry that you sinned, though sorrow is usually what drives a person to repent. "For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter" (II Corinthians 7:10-11).
Repentance means changing your mind about the sins you committed -- no longer justifying them -- and changing your behavior -- no longer committing them. That will be the biggest challenge for you and your boyfriend. Sins committed once are easily done again. You both will have to be committed to this course and both of you will have to go out of your way to not arouse each other's passions.
When God forgives, he doesn't hold the person's past against him. "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God" (I Corinthians 6:9-11).
