I would like to know if God will forgive me if I sin? What if I asked for His forgiveness, but there are times that I am still doing the bad things, such as sleeping with my fiance though we are not yet married? There are times I realize that I have done something wrong in the sight of God. Will God still forgive me for being hard-headed sometimes? What should I do?<\/p>\n\t
Better than anyone, God understands that sin is not good for people. Though it appears to be fun and exciting on the surface, the ultimate consequence of sin is pain and misery. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance<\/em>” (II Peter 3:9). Thus God’s goal is to rescue as many people as He can from ourselves and our sins.<\/p>\n The key though is that the person must change; that is what repentance means. Imagine trying to rescue someone who is drowning, but who at the same time refuses to get out of the water. The same problem occurs when God tries to save a person from sin, but he remains in it. ““But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord GOD, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?”<\/em>” (Ezekiel 18:21-23).<\/p>\n Therefore, the answer is, of course, God is willing and able to forgive you of your sins, but you have to leave them. You can’t be committing fornication and expect God to accept you as you are. ““Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord GOD. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord GOD. “Therefore turn and live!”<\/em>” (Ezekiel 18:30-32).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: I would like to know if God will forgive me if I sin? What if I asked for His forgiveness, but there are times that I am still doing the bad things, such as sleeping with my fiance though we are not yet married? There are times I realize that I have done something…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[1571,1572,50],"class_list":["post-13466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-forgiveness","tag-fornication","tag-repentance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":37851,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-wasnt-satan-and-his-angels-offered-forgiveness\/","url_meta":{"origin":13466,"position":0},"title":"Why wasn’t Satan and his angels offered forgiveness?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I just stumbled into your website. I have a question. God commands us to forgive and this I accept but my question is: Why did God not forgive Lucifer, the devil? We need to follow the examples of God. Is there a reason why God refused to forgive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94933,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-we-not-forgive-the-unrepentant\/","url_meta":{"origin":13466,"position":1},"title":"Do we not forgive the unrepentant?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 4, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Does Luke 17:3 imply that we are not to forgive a brother or sister until they have repented? I know God will not forgive until we have repented and asked him for forgiveness. Answer: \"Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":70001,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/forgiveness-without-repentance\/","url_meta":{"origin":13466,"position":2},"title":"Forgiveness Without Repentance?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 1, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Mike Johnson via Seeking Things Above The Bible emphasizes the importance of forgiving those who sin against us. In fact, failing to do so is very frightening because, in Matthew 6:14-15, Jesus taught, \"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":53594,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-repented-but-i-kept-sinning\/","url_meta":{"origin":13466,"position":3},"title":"I repented, but I kept sinning","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I knew my sin was wrong. I kept doing it, and 'repenting' almost every day, but planned on doing the same sexual sin the next day. God was calling me to repent. I finally tried to stop sinning and came to Him. He forgave me, and I was born\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12307,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/would-god-forgive-incest\/","url_meta":{"origin":13466,"position":4},"title":"Would God forgive incest?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Greetings! I would like to ask for some advice about my unrighteousness. I hope you could reply. To get straight to it, I had sex with my brother. It was not really the kind of serious kind of sex because we were just playing around. At that time we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":84773,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-i-forgive-myself\/","url_meta":{"origin":13466,"position":5},"title":"How do I forgive myself?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 21, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Brother, I am in my later years and obeyed the gospel nearly forty years ago. I have been in the church of Christ all this time. I have filled in preaching and teaching in my local congregation at many levels. I have been going to other countries for about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}