If you were a bad example as a teen and several of the other teens at church were influenced to sin by you, once you have repented and started living as a Christian years later, what does the Lord want you to do? Do you need to track these people down and ask their forgiveness? Will you be held accountable for leading them astray as Jesus said in Matthew?<\/p>\n\t
“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).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In a literal sense, the past is not fixable. You cannot return to the past and change what you have done. You might be able to lessen the impact of your misdeeds. For example, if you had stolen money, you might be able to restore what was stolen as a demonstration of your change. This is what Zacchaeus did. “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold<\/em>” (Luke 19:8). Zacchaeus knew he had wrongly profited from others. Those he knew he corrected his fault, he vowed to return to them four times what he had taken. The Old Law only required a 20% addition to the return, but Zacchaeus was zealous to prove his change. Yet, there were many whom he could not return what was taken. For this reason, he vowed to give half his wealth to the poor. He couldn’t make it up to the specific individuals, but he could at least remove his ill-gotten profits and benefit people in general.<\/p>\n
You can do the same. Those you may still have contact with, you can call or write a nice note apologizing for your past misbehavior and let them know the peace you found in the Lord. But what of the rest? Why don’t you demonstrate the new you? Volunteer to work with teens in your area, tell them about your checkered past, the grief it caused you, and how you found a better way. You can’t change the past, but you could change the future for someone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: If you were a bad example as a teen and several of the other teens at church were influenced to sin by you, once you have repented and started living as a Christian years later, what does the Lord want you to do? Do you need to track these people down and ask their…<\/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":[353,50],"class_list":["post-9098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-influence","tag-repentance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":22926,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-godly-sorrow-and-how-can-a-wheelchair-bound-person-be-baptized\/","url_meta":{"origin":9098,"position":0},"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 "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20140,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/must-each-person-i-sinned-against-be-contacted-before-i-can-be-forgiven\/","url_meta":{"origin":9098,"position":1},"title":"Must each person I sinned against be contacted before I can be forgiven?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How should a Christian handle sins that have been committed in the past as far as contacting each person whom he has sinned against? Must each person be contacted before the Christian is forgiven? Answer: A similar question was asked a few years ago. See: \"In order to repent,\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":18425,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-many-days-after-apologizing-do-we-have-to-stop-committing-a-sin-for-god-to-forgive-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":9098,"position":2},"title":"How many days after apologizing do we have to stop committing a sin for God to forgive us?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How many days after apologizing do we have to stop committing a sin for God to forgive us? Answer: You seem to have a mistaken idea. When you realize that you are sinning, you should immediately stop. \"For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces\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":46827,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-keep-having-sex-with-my-boyfriend-will-god-keep-forgiving-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":9098,"position":3},"title":"I keep having sex with my boyfriend. Will God keep forgiving me?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 27, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I don't even know where to start. (Deep breath) Well, I have been going to church for five years. I met this guy who isn't Christian, and we have been together two years. We have been having sex all this time. Every time I feel worse. I ask\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":44561,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/im-afraid-my-past-stealing-will-come-back-to-haunt-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":9098,"position":4},"title":"I’m afraid my past stealing will come back to haunt me","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, Please, I am 15 years old, in school and I have stolen. I took someone'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.\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":29521,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-love-the-lord-but-i-must-be-grieving-him-so-much\/","url_meta":{"origin":9098,"position":5},"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 "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\/9098","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=9098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}