I want to stop fornicating. I have always prayed that I want to get married to the man I would be dating for the first time, and I thank God for giving me that. I have been with this guy for eight years, but my problem is that at first, he wanted sex and I was the one wanting us to wait until we married. We fornicated and I felt so bad about it. I promised it would not happen again, but it got out of control. I kept praying and fasting, I even went to see a priest to pray for us. I gave money to the needy so that God will have mercy on us and change us. I love God so much, and I am not happy any time I fornicate, but the more I want to stop the more I get myself involved.<\/p>\n
Please help me. The problem is that we are staying together because of problems. The guy is able to control himself and even pray for me to change. I am now the one with the problem. I am working on getting a place to move out to but please help me.<\/p>\n\t
Zoos don’t put sheep in the lion’s pen when they are short on space. Even if the lions are kept well feed, we all know what will eventually happen when a lion decides to change its diet and have a snack. We don’t expect the lion to change its nature to suit our needs.<\/p>\n
But you are expecting God or someone else to change your body’s nature. “Can a man take fire to his bosom, And his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals, And his feet not be seared?<\/em>” (Proverbs 6:27-28). You can be kind and sweet to a lump of hot coal, but it will still burn you. You may not intend to step on a lump of hot coal and apologize to it, but it will still burn you. Your nature isn’t going to change just because you feel guilty.<\/p>\n You state that he has more self-control, but I must disagree. He doesn’t have to push as hard for sex because you are making it available to him. He can pretend to be taking the high road, but he still drops his pants when it is time for sex. His nature isn’t changing either.<\/p>\n You are wondering why the fornication doesn’t stop when the natural result of a man and woman being in close quarters is to yield to sex. You are like the zookeeper who keeps wondering why the lions keep eating his sheep. But the real question is why you two never changed your situation. You’ve been living together for eight years! Really! Why didn’t you just get married? What is stopping you from going down to the courthouse and getting married today? Instead, you decide you are going to move out one day — after you are able to secure a place. I suspect it isn’t something that will happen so because you really don’t want to leave. Meanwhile, you continue to sin.<\/p>\n In a sense, you tried to bribe God with what you saw as good deeds in hopes that God would change your nature. It didn’t work because it isn’t your nature that is wrong, but the choices you have been making. If you want to be married to this man, then get married immediately. It doesn’t cost much to have a courthouse ceremony and if you want to have a fancy one, you can do that later. If you aren’t going to marry this man, then leave immediately. Having sex with a man you have no intentions of marrying isn’t doing either of you good and it will keep you out of heaven (I Corinthians 6:9-10).<\/p>\n\t Thank you so much, sir, and God richly bless you. Your words have given me a lot to do. Please, sir, I just moved in with him two months ago, but I thank you for the advice. I will move out until we settle the right way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: I want to stop fornicating. I have always prayed that I want to get married to the man I would be dating for the first time, and I thank God for giving me that. I have been with this guy for eight years, but my problem is that at first, he wanted sex and…<\/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,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1711,1572,655,811],"class_list":["post-43306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-cohabitation","tag-fornication","tag-living-together","tag-self-control"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":40964,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/weve-been-living-together-for-years-how-can-we-stop-committing-fornication\/","url_meta":{"origin":43306,"position":0},"title":"We’ve been living together for years, how can we stop committing fornication?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I got pregnant at the age of 17, I am now 21 and am still with the father of my baby. I've always gone to church since I was young but about a few months ago I realized that I needed to take my life more serious and\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":38391,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-we-save-our-relationship-without-having-sex-until-marriage\/","url_meta":{"origin":43306,"position":1},"title":"How do we save our relationship without having sex until marriage?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello there! I recently came across your article about couples that have committed sexual sins before marriage and how they still worked out and still have room for hope. My loved one and I are wanting to get married. We plan on getting married but with going to college,\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":44817,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-i-marry-the-woman-my-brother-once-slept-with\/","url_meta":{"origin":43306,"position":2},"title":"Should I marry the woman my brother once slept with?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: First of all may God bless you for this site. I committed fornication for the first time when I was at the age of 21 years. Since then I have not been able to control myself from fornication. I always have regretted doing it. I want to stop it,\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":39846,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-we-keep-from-going-too-far\/","url_meta":{"origin":43306,"position":3},"title":"How do we keep from going too far?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My boyfriend (21 years old) and I (20 years old) have been going out for almost 3 years now and were best friends for 2 years before that. Both of our parents have decided that marriage is out of the question until we finish our degrees, so we have\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":3778,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-can-i-stay-out-of-fornication\/","url_meta":{"origin":43306,"position":4},"title":"How can I stay out of fornication?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Evening sir, I need spiritual deliverance. I am a married man, but before my marriage, I was lost in fornication. I even dragged my fiancee into it. We realized later that it was not good and confess our sins. 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We are both adults and in a situation where it's rather complicated\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\/43306","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=43306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Response:<\/h2>\n