How can a girl and boy be pure again after committing fornication?
Question:
It really amazed me to cross your path this afternoon.
I'm a 24-year-old youth who has been seeking the correct answer about how can boyfriend and girlfriend be clean and pure again before God after they have committed fornication.
I am in a similar situation for a long time now, just as how this 21-year-old lady asked questions about fornication. The only difference is that I'm a male and I have done the act countless times from the time I became 20 until I was 22.
I've asked for forgiveness and mercy. I have also fasted to show God how regretful I am. With all that, I still had no assurance that God have forgiven me. Just like that lady, I was just trying to be nice and play a gentleman's role toward my girlfriend ever since. Even though I still love her, I have put boundaries between us for a long time now.
She is a Christian as I am. We are even attending the same church. But this guiltiness is still hitting us hard such that we don't allow ourselves to do things together in the church. The answers you gave concerning the young lady, were so absolute and I've read them over and over. But please, looking at my own situation, can you reassure me of God's forgiveness in my life?
Please reply.
Thank you.
Answer:
The difficulty you are having is that you are looking for assurance in the wrong places. Forgiveness is not a feeling or a lack of guilt over what you have done in the past. God told Christians:
"This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world" (I John 1:5-2:2).
Thus, the question for you is do you trust God's statement on the matter or are you demanding that He does more to prove that His word is true?
Guilt has a purpose. It reminds us that we did wrong, so it keeps us humble. It warns us not to repeat our past mistakes. But your past cannot run your life.
Look at yourself. Hopefully, you see yourself as a young man who has dramatically changed. A man who has been forgiven of great wrongs. And a man deeply appreciative of the mercy God has granted to him.
"Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12-14).
