I am a single Christian parent, but my partner (a non-Christian) never wants to separate from me.\u00a0 I wanted to get baptized, but he keeps coming back only to stay a few days and goes away for a while for work. During his few days with us, I pray for forgiveness. I wanted us to get married so I can get baptized, but he needs to sort out his identification and it’s taken him too long. Is this how the evil one working to hold me back? I have been waiting a few months now.\u00a0 What should I do?<\/p>\n\t
While you would like to follow the Christian’s way of life, the simple fact is that you have not yet entered into the covenant with Christ because you have not been baptized. “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ<\/em>” (Galatians 3:26-27).<\/p>\n You are unable to be baptized because you have yet to repent of the fornication that you are committing. I know you are blaming him but you are the one that continues to have sex with him without insisting that you get married first. Yes, you are sorry that you sin, but sorrow is not changing what is happening. “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<\/em>” (II Corinthians 7:10-11). Without giving up your sins, you cannot become a Christian (Acts 2:38).<\/p>\n Let him sort out his problems, but do so without being in your bed. Given that he only visits briefly once in a while, I would not be at all surprised to learn that he has other women in other places. Perhaps I’m too suspicious, but this situation sounds familiar.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: I am a single Christian parent, but my partner (a non-Christian) never wants to separate from me.\u00a0 I wanted to get baptized, but he keeps coming back only to stay a few days and goes away for a while for work. During his few days with us, I pray for forgiveness. I wanted us…<\/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_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[52,1711,1572,655,50],"class_list":["post-44359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-baptism","tag-cohabitation","tag-fornication","tag-living-together","tag-repentance"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":60795,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-i-get-baptized-while-being-in-a-relationship\/","url_meta":{"origin":44359,"position":0},"title":"Can I get baptized while being in a relationship?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 11, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I'm a 21-year-old male. My Father is a pastor. I'm in a relationship with my sister-in-law. Now I wanted to take baptism, but I have concerns. Do we need to break our relationship in order to get baptized? She is a very good girl, and I preached the gospel\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":16393,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-should-we-argue-about-not-getting-baptized-we-should-want-to-shout-it-out-to-the-whole-world-that-were-in-christ\/","url_meta":{"origin":44359,"position":1},"title":"Why should we argue about not getting baptized? We should want to shout it out to the whole world that we’re in Christ!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi! Several weeks ago, I was looking at the web site. I surfed it for several hours and eventually got into the topic of baptism. When I grew up, I was in a Christian home. My parents gave me the option of being baptized when I was 4 or\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":53958,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-there-a-minimum-level-of-faith-needed-to-become-a-christian\/","url_meta":{"origin":44359,"position":2},"title":"Is there a minimum level of faith needed to become a Christian?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have been a Christian for many years. When I was baptized I came up out of the water and began to doubt if I really believed in Christ. I was under much emotional stress at that time. I did not let this doubt stop me from worshiping, but\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":47056,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-i-get-forgiveness-of-my-sins-before-i-am-baptized\/","url_meta":{"origin":44359,"position":3},"title":"Can I get forgiveness of my sins before I am baptized?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 4, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have accepted Jesus as my Savior but there is this little detail: I am not baptized. My family is not Catholic, so I wasn't baptized, but I truly believe in God and have been praying a lot lately for His forgivenesses. Is it okay if I'm not baptized?\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":48779,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-i-get-baptized-even-though-im-still-living-with-my-boyfriend\/","url_meta":{"origin":44359,"position":4},"title":"Can I get baptized even though I’m still living with my boyfriend?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 5, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have been with my partner for 19 years, but we are not married.\u00a0 I started going to church three years ago, but my partner isn't a believer.\u00a0 Some in the church say that in the eyes of God we are married and, therefore, I should be baptized. However,\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":47373,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-we-have-sex-one-more-time-before-our-baptisms-will-god-forgive-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":44359,"position":5},"title":"If we have sex one more time before our baptisms, will God forgive us?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, I recently converted to Christianity and so did my girlfriend. We both have been in a very sexual relationship before we found God. We have been trying hard not to do anything sexual, but we messed up once, felt horrible, and asked for forgiveness. We're getting baptized soon,\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":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44359","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=44359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}