Can I be forgiven?

[INeedHelpPlz]

I started masturbating about two years ago because I didnt know it was wrong
I am catholic, which is partly the reason I gave up, the other part was because I knew I wanted and needed too
I have been able to stop for a few months now and no longer feel a need tobut pain I feel wont go away. Each day I wake up I feel terrible and its getting harder and harder each day

I've apologised to God every day and have been doing different things to make up for the fact I mastubated for so long, I really got addicted which is what hurts.

-->What really hurts the very most is that during the period I was masturbating, I started doing it over pictures I should'nt. I've apologised so much and have tried to make up for it but the worry and guilt keeps coming back and hitting me hard. I know I'll never do somthing like that again and I've promised God I wont, I really sieriously dont know what came over me but I'm having trouble coping. <--

I've recently become ill out of worry, I dont want to go to hell and I'm worrried God cant forgive me. I dont want to have let him down, someone please help.

[Slug1]

Hey there, ya know... I was in your place once before since this was an addiction with me for many years. I wasn't concerned with the sin for a period of time but then began to get convicted by the Holy Spirit.

As for this guilt... the Bible is very clear on which sin is unforgivable and this sin is not that sin. So, if you have been repentant in your prayer for forgiveness then you are forgiven. In my case, I needed to be delivered from this sin.

Guilt is not from God, conviction is from God. If you are convicted of sin and give it to God and are repentant then the conviction goes away. If you are feeling guilty then this is not from God... it could be simply you haven't forgiven yourself as this is a stumbling block that satan places directly infront of many people to suffer and steal their freedom in Jesus after forgiveness.

Ask God to help you remove this guilt/stumbling block that is tripping you up.

I'll be asking the Mods here in this forum to move your thread to Counseling for better responces. Also, you said you were "addicted" once to this sin... we also have a forum called Breaking the Chains for Biblical Recovery of this sort of situation. If you're not addicted any longer then Counseling will be a better forum for help.

[ynnedenny]

You're already forgiven, brother. That's the perfect beauty of God's given grace. If you are saved, as in accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, then it's been washed away by the blood he shed for all of us. Believe me, you are further along than I am in this struggle... I'm ashamed to say that I've succumbed several times in the last week. I will overcome, though... I just need to pray about it at length and ask God to help me be a stronger Christian man.

You have nothing to worry about. Take that negative energy and pour it into prayer and praise. You'll be glad you did.

[Scruffy Kid]

Dear INeedHelpPlz,
Welcome to Bibleforums! :hug:
It's really nice to have you here! :pp :pp :pp

Thanks, also, for you question, and for your concern about following God's ways.

First things first. God loves you immensely. He knows us completely, and loves us totally. He knows you, and me, and all about every thing you have done wrong -- including lots of things you did wrong that you don't even know about. And he loves you -- more than you can even imagine.

Consider some of the things that Jesus said.

Jesus was criticized for hanging out with whores and traitors (tax-collectors), going to parties with them, and even inviting them to parties. He replied "It's not people who are completely well who need a doctor -- it's people who are suffering from an illness! So I came not to call righteous people to repent, but to call sinners!" In other words, Jesus said that he came to help us get better, morally, and that he was coming to help those who had problems.

Again (Luke 15), Jesus was criticized for having fellowship with sinners -- serious sinners. The religious people were murmuring against him " saying, 'This man receives sinners and eats with them.' " So Jesus replied "Which of you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."

The central thought here is the love that Jesus has for us sinners, and the way that he has come to help us and save us, not condemn us. Again it is written (John 3:17) "God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him."

The starting point, for you, I think, is to realize how good and how kind God is, and how very much He loves you!! Yeah, consider you just after you have blown it, one more time. That very person who just gave in to temptation and feels awful about it -- that very person God loves dearly.

Imagine, for a moment that I, or one of the other older guys on the board was your dad. We find out that you are struggling with lust, and masturbation, and a little porn. What is our attitude going to be. I know for most of us the attitude is going to be: "Poor kid. Yeah, that is a problem. But you are still my kid, and I love you a lot. Let's see how to go on in a constructive way!!" We feel just as we would toward a little boy or girl who fell down and hurt himself for herself -- or just like Jesus talks about the shepherd feeling toward the lost sheep.

Jesus says: (Matt. 7:9-11) "What man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" In the same way, if I or other guys on the board who are dads, or women on the board who have kids, would think of your problems with lust and masturbation compassionately and gently, how much more will God!

Now don't get me wrong here. God forbids lust, and porn. God doesn't want us to be masturbating. I agree with you that this is a wrong thing to do. But you must not confuse the fact that you blow it some with being rejected by God.



I want to say more in another post, but let's start with this.

It's right, INeedHelpPlz, that you should want to be chaste, want to have pure thoughts, and not masturbate. But you must not let your failures in this area lead you into thinking about God in the wrong way. Yes, God is holy and just. But God knows our weaknesses, and is very kind to those who are trying, even if we keep failing. God knows all about what goes wrong, and how badly, and how often, and really, really loves you. Loves you and cares about you more than you can even imagine!

In friendship, :hug:
Scruffy Kid

[Scruffy Kid]

Hello again!!

I want to introduce a little more perspective, and realism, into our discussion.

Perspective: The Main Point is God's love and mercy to us
Even though We are sinners

The Bible teaches us, and the church through the ages has taught us, that all of us are sinners. David says (Psalm 51:1-6) [1] Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy steadfast love;
.....according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
[2] Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!
[3] For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
[4] Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight,
.....so that thou art justified in thy sentence and blameless in thy judgment.
[5] Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
.....and I have been a sinner from my mother's womb.
[6] Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;
.....therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. We are all sinful, in various ways. Your sin did not start when you started to whack off: even as little children we are disobedient and self-centered, and this continues as we get older.

It's this which leads us to discover the greatness of God's goodness and mercy!! Jesus says (Matt. 5) that God is kind even to the ungrateful and disobedient, and sends good upon the just and the unjust. Jesus teaches us to love others -- even people we don't know, even our enemies -- because God is kind and gracious even to people who are doing wrong. While Jesus is telling us to be good to people we don't like, or even who do us harm, I believe that His central point is for us to realize the greatness of God's love and mercy. As ynnedenny rightly advised you, you can take your sadness that you mess up in this area, and rather than being afraid and hopeless, learn to seek God's help, and to trust in His forgiveness.

Realism

About 95% of teenage boys masturbate, and a pretty high percentage of girls. Lots of kids get addicted. A fair number get hooked on porn. A pretty high percentage of adults are in the same boat.

This is a bad thing. I'm not excusing it in any way. And you are absolutely right to try to get free, and to be sad that you are doing what is wrong.

But also, you have to look at this in realistic perspective, and try to see that life as a whole -- our lives in a fallen and sinful world -- is one in which we recognize that we are messed-up, broken, and sinful people, but that greater than all that is the salvation which God has given us in Jesus Christ. Christ has taken our sins, and born them, setting us free from God's anger, and helping us to walk in the goodness and light of God's grace.

So we can ask: why doesn't God help me more to stop doing this?

Of course, the first answer is: no one is forcing you to do this: it is your responsibility to stop! Therefore, we are right, to some extent, to feel bad about this.

But there are other aspects as well. If God gave me freedom in this area -- as sometimes he does give us freedom -- I might be sinning in other areas (pride, selfishness, disobedience, lack of thankfulness, overeating, etc., etc.). The sin of masturbation is in some ways particularly galling for us, because it's so gross, and so unnecessary, and kind of humiliating and shameful. But actually, other sins which don't bother us nearly as much -- resentment of others, pride, callousness toward others suffering, laziness, looking down on others, unforgiving attitudes, and so on -- may actually be worse sins. But we can kind of ignore them, or not even notice that they are there. So this particular sin keeps us humble, and keeps us realizing God's love and goodness and forgiveness toward us. Therefore sometimes the ongoing struggle with lust and masturbation can be an area where God helps us to grow in faith -- faith in God's mercy and kindness, and strength to accept ourselves and others despite our problems, because God loves us dearly, and accepts us, through Jesus, despite our failings and sins.

What we need to do is, every time we stumble, we go straight to God and say "I'm sorry. Help me to do better. Thank you so much for your steadfast love and mercy, and for forgiving me over and over. Help me to walk in gratefulness and love for you and for others, and joy about how you love us despite our faults!" And then go in peace and try to do your best -- both in this area, and in other areas of life. In this way, we learn to walk with God. We can rejoice in God's goodness and kindness rather than walking in a sense of condemnation.

An example of God's forgiveness.
The Greatness of God's Love and Mercy!

Peter once asked Jesus: How many times do I keep forgiving my brother if he sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus replied, Peter, not up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven times.

Jesus's idea is not that we should count up to 490 times and then not forgive any more. His immediate point is that we should go on forgiving without limit. Why? because we love our brother, and that's more important to us than some failing or habit he has that hurts us in some way.

But Jesus main point is not just about our forgiving others. His main point is that God forgives us a thousand times more often than we have to forgive others. Thus, when He tells Peter to forgive seventy times seven times, Jesus is telling us, first, that God forgives us of various things we do wrong hundreds of times a day. Thus we come to see our life as one where God in the fullness of his love, is showering us with his love and kindness, throughout the day, and instead of shrinking from God in fear, we come to him in trust and happiness, even when we are sad because we blew it in some area. Jesus illustrates this with another story as well, in Matt. 18.

Balance about this

We are definitely not to take sin lightly. We certainly need to try to walk in God's ways. They are right. They are the ways of life. We have a duty to obey God. We should be sad to go astray. We need to seek to walk in godliness. And it's a good thing that you take purity seriously. Really good. We must not have a casual attitude toward sin.

It's really good that you've given this up for some months. We can be very thankful to God for helping you in this!!

But at the same time, we need to understand that we are messed-up people, and need God's mercy. This should lead us not to anxiety, but to increasing joy and obedience, in lots of areas of our life, as we come to understand how much God loves us, and how steady and unchanging is His love, despite our faults.

Blessings on you!!

May God's peace and righteousness grow in you day by day,
dear one, whom God greatly loves!!

In friendship, :hug:
Scruffy Kid

[Studyin'2Show]

I'm moving this into the Breaking the Chains forum.

God Bless!

[Sold Out]

I've recently become ill out of worry, I dont want to go to hell and I'm worrried God cant forgive me. I dont want to have let him down, someone please help.


Not to take away from your post, but have you personally accepted Christ as your Savior? Was there a day that someone shared the Gospel with you and you called on Christ to save you?

[cheech]

Isaiah 43:18
"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past."

God does not want us to dwell on our past and all of the bad things we have done for the simple fact of what you are going through...guilt. The only reason we are to remember it is to help others who are suffering through the same thing or to remember that it is something we are suppose to stay away from...that is it. When we constantly remind ourselves of our old self and our sinful ways, we do not allow ourselves to move forward on the path Christ has set before us.

1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

It sounds as if Christ has freed you from the bondage of masturbation. Now, allow him to free you from the bondage of guilt! Turn yourself away from the enemy who put those chains of guilt around your wrists and turn yourself towards Christ so he can break those chains of guilt once and for all!

Galatians 5:1
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.