{"id":44561,"date":"2015-02-04T14:04:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T20:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=44561"},"modified":"2022-03-12T14:06:49","modified_gmt":"2022-03-12T20:06:49","slug":"im-afraid-my-past-stealing-will-come-back-to-haunt-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/im-afraid-my-past-stealing-will-come-back-to-haunt-me\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m afraid my past stealing will come back to haunt me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>Hello,<\/p>\n<p>Please, I am 15 years old, in school and I have stolen. I took someone&#8217;s card details and bought some items for myself. I went to the person and told him, but I only told him about three items and paid him back while there were four items. I confessed my sins to God and turned a new leaf, but I am still scared that my past would come back to haunt me and get me in trouble.<\/p>\n<p>Please help me.<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<p>You didn&#8217;t fully repent since you only partly paid the person back what you stole. Either give the person what you bought with his money or pay him back for the last item as well. &#8220;<em>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>&#8221; (II Corinthians 7:10-11).<\/p>\n<p>The past can&#8217;t be changed. Once you finished reducing the damage that you caused, you need to put the past behind you and focus on living righteously. Whether the past comes back to haunt you or not is not in your control, so spending time worrying about what might happen isn&#8217;t worth the time. People will pay more attention to the person you currently are than the person you used to be.<\/p>\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>I have spoken to the person about it. What do I do when I have bad thoughts about the past?<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<p>Remind yourself that you are no longer the person you used to be.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: Hello, Please, I am 15 years old, in school and I have stolen. I took someone&#8217;s card details and bought some items for myself. I went to the person and told him, but I only told him about three items and paid him back while there were four items. I confessed my sins to&hellip;<\/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":[703,526],"class_list":["post-44561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-guilt","tag-stealing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":29521,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-love-the-lord-but-i-must-be-grieving-him-so-much\/","url_meta":{"origin":44561,"position":0},"title":"I love the Lord, but I must be grieving Him so much","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Here is my story: I married a man, but after a year his sister put me out of the house because of my drinking and partying with friends. I had nowhere to go, so I met people who took me to another town. I wasn't saved at that time,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22926,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-godly-sorrow-and-how-can-a-wheelchair-bound-person-be-baptized\/","url_meta":{"origin":44561,"position":1},"title":"What is godly sorrow and how can a wheelchair-bound person be baptized?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I plan to be baptized as soon as I feel that I have properly obeyed the prerequisite commands to baptism: Hear the gospel, believe the gospel, repent of past sins, confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of\u00a0 God, and after being baptized remaining faithful until death. Which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67258,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-i-repent-of-stealing-from-my-neighbors\/","url_meta":{"origin":44561,"position":2},"title":"How do I repent of stealing from my neighbors?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 29, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I have sinned for many years. I recently gave my life to Christ. I repented to the Lord of all my sins. I am devoting the rest of my existence to serving the Lord Jesus Christ. One of my biggest sins was being a thief for many years.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39695,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-dont-want-to-be-sorry-for-the-wrong-reasons\/","url_meta":{"origin":44561,"position":3},"title":"I don&#8217;t want to be sorry for the wrong reasons","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was raised Catholic and have not been baptized yet as an adult. For repentance do we need to go back and set everything right before being forgiven? Must we confess every lie we ever told to every person? Or is asking God to forgive us enough? And to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9165,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-i-have-to-make-restitution\/","url_meta":{"origin":44561,"position":4},"title":"Do I have to make restitution?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Is it a sin if you don't pay back what you've stolen? Like I used to copy movies and, well, that's stealing, but I don't feel like paying back what I copied. Isn't that why Jesus dies for our sins? Answer: Repentance from sin means making a complete turn\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44359,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-want-to-get-baptized-but-my-partner-doesnt-want-to-separate-from-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":44561,"position":5},"title":"I want to get baptized but my partner doesn&#8217;t want to separate from me","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 23, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","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\/44561","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=44561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}