Yes, we are having sex but we know we are getting married…

I hear this sentiment a lot. From, “What’s the big deal? We are getting married eventually” to “I am faithful to my partner” or “If my partner and I are sleeping with only each other, then those arguments about body count and soul ties are nullified, so I don’t see what the issue is.” And that sounds great and all, BUT can we pause for a second to consider what God actually desires from us? The truth of the matter is that, yes, you’re being faithful to your partner, but in the process of your faithfulness to man, you are being unfaithful to God. You are honoring and serving created beings over the creator. (And let’s be honest. Are you really honoring the other person if you aren’t walking in Biblical love? So at the end, you are dishonoring God, your partner and yourself.) Mercyyy… 

Let’s unpack the topic of the day a little further, shall we…

“We know we are getting married”

That alone is rooted in pride. How do you know you are going to get married? How do you know you’re going to be alive tomorrow? You do not know the future or own your time. James 4:13-15  says “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.”

Okay, Xenia, if the Lord wills, we will get married

Amen. But let us explore the foundation on which your marriage will be built on. 

The word of God says flee from sexual immorality, greed, covetousness etc. So if your relationship is built on lust and a disregard for God’s command, it is not God’s will for you to continue in that sin. It is also naive to believe that God will bless or approve of that sin/relationship. Until repentance and a change of behavior to honor God happens, you are building your relationship on sinking sand. Please do not take the “building of marriage on sinking sand” lightly because your actions today may affect your children in the future. It was a sobering moment for me when God pointed out my selfishness in choosing to remain in sin while stacking up generational curses for my children instead of breaking them. So, please take this seriously. Your marriage will suffer if not built on a great foundation. All the “God forbids” in the world won’t change that. 

“Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” James 4:17

As you read this, your mind may have wandered to certain couples who you knew were fornicating and are now married and look like they are thriving. Please note this…outward success is not always an indicator that God is pleased with you and neither is it an indicator of Godly blessings. So worldly standards of success should not be our yardstick for whether or not we are aligned with God. Our actions, fruits and hearts are really what show us if we are submitted to God. Now, do not misinterpret what I am saying. If you REPENT from your sins, God is faithful and He will then bless your obedient heart and also bless your marriage or relationship (if you are single). It is not over for you because you sinned. Jesus paid it ALL. As long as you have breath in your lungs, you have an opportunity to live right. 

Do not be fooled by this deception that our sins are blessed by God and every prayer said concerning willful sin is heard and answered. As a matter of fact, that prayer does not get off the ground (check out Isaiah 58). You cannot manipulate the word of God to fit your sinful actions. For example, if an armed robber said “If the Lord wills, our mission will be successful” you would probably look at them crazy or laugh. Why? Because you know that their request is out of alignment with God’s desire. You cannot possibly ask God to bless sin? So why then, do we think it is any different with a relationship built on sin? The foundation is already shaky and it is to one’s detriment to build on a shaky foundation. 

Marriage

Let us talk about marriage for a second. There is this notion that marriage is the end all be all especially in a Christian’s life and this is false. Marriage is a blessing, marriage is awesome and marriage is a reflection of Christ’s love for His church BUT marriage isn’t the optimum goal of our Christian walk. Sanctification and being yielded to Christ is. Marriage is a process/ tool that God uses to refine us and make us more like Him. So this notion that marriage is the prize at the end of the race is wrong. This idea of marriage being the ultimate prize is what has fueled this argument of “keeping yourself doesn’t guarantee marriage. A woman can have sex with a man on the first date and still get wifed”. Well, if in the process of being “wifed” or “wedded” you are compromising kingdom values and commands, IT IS NOT WORTH IT. Even if you do marry him or her, the process through which you get to that point is tainted and you are dishonoring and displeasing God. We were created to worship God and anything that hinders that must be submitted to Christ and resisted.

Your desire to walk in holiness/ purity isn’t to get a reward for good behaviour but rather, to please God and live a life of honor. It is you offering up your body as a living sacrifice to the One who is worthy of it (Romans 12:1). So at the end of the day, it really boils down to your WHY. If you don’t see the value of waiting, or if your wanting to wait is not fueled by your reverence and love for God, you will find ways to justify why your sin is okay or you might not even see it as an issue. The goal and point of our lives isn’t marriage, but sanctification. And sex before marriage hinders that.

“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.” 1 Corinthians 6:18

So let’s debunk the LIE AND DECEPTION of the enemy that says that “as long as we get married, sinning on the way to ‘I DO’ is okay.” It is not.

God is a God of justice and a God of mercy, so I cannot end this blog without talking about His merciful, gracious and redemptive nature. 

The LORD is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. Psalm 103:8

If you are a believer and you have found yourself believing the lie that sex before marriage is not a big deal and you have been having sex before marriage, confess your sins and repent. When Jesus died on the cross He said “It is finished” and He paid the price for ALL SIN. And the Bible says that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9) It is not too late to turn your life around and do what pleases God. God has promised to equip us to accomplish every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The same Bible says that “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Now, if you are a believer and you are explicitly sinning and have no conviction, you should be worried and cry out to God for deliverance. You really need to ask God to intervene and rescue you because your heart has become hardened and you have quenched the Holy Spirit. Sin leads to death and it is important for us to be real with ourselves and with God. It is okay to recognize that you enjoy the sin you’re in, but also recognize that that sin needs to bow down to Jesus Christ, and that God has given you the strength to overcome. 

If you cannot let go of your willful sin, you have either lost sight of Jesus or you have allowed your flesh to bully you into submission…and it is a-okay to cry out and say,

“Lord help me. Save me from this pit because I cannot. The sex is good, I am attached, addicted…so snatch me out of this sin I am imbedded in. Set me free from the chains of bondage I’m in. And Lord with Your help, may my life be surrendered to you because you are LORD of my life. In Jesus name. Amen”  

And in the name of Jesus, may God respond to your cry.

Some of us need to ask the Holy Spirit to invade us and take over, because if He leaves us with a choice, we won’t allow Him to move. There have been times I have plainly said to Holy Spirit, “I know You are a gentleman and you respect my choice BUT PLEASE I give You permission to just do what You want and to move and shake me, because my flesh hinders Your flow. Holy Spirit I need You right now. I give You permission to just MOVE.” And some of you need this prayer right now because your flesh is making you stagnant.

Listen, I get it. I thought I was going to marry this guy and because of that I placed my intimacy with him above my intimacy with God. But here is the thing…we weren’t married so I had no business doing the things I did with him…and no, we did not have sex but sin is sin (the idea of “how far did you go” or calculating the degree of sexual sin one committed is PRIDE). I was convicted but it was not enough to stop me from sinning because I enjoyed the sin. I would feel guilty, but not enough to stop the flesh. I would apologize to God and go right back to the sin I had just apologized about. And that makes sense because what you feed grows, and at that moment my flesh was having a feast. I was quenching the Spirit and losing sight of God…and myself. I remember in the midst of my sin, God led me to a preacher (Peter Tan-Chi) and in one of his teachings he said, “You do not know God and you do not love God…and on your behalf I am going to intercede and tell Holy Spirit to break you…break you out of your sin” And with tears in my eyes I realized I was not a friend of God in that moment and that I had in fact wandered from the lover of my soul. 

So if you are reading this, and you are in the same predicament, it’s not too late to walk uprightly and I intercede on your behalf, in the name of Jesus and say “Holy Spirit, arrest your child’s heart again. Invade them and move them to deep sorrow over their sins so that they repent from their wicked ways. May conviction be so heavy it leads them back to You and God, please empower them according to Philippians 2:13 to live righteously. And Lord, according to 1 John 1:9, please forgive them when they confess their sins. In Jesus name. Amen”

“Surrender feels impossible, hard. A terror commanded by scripture. But, I’d rather have more God than anything because He’s better than everything” Jackie Hill Perry

SPARKNOTES

If you have found yourself in a pattern of sin, and cannot shake it off or get out of it or have no conviction 

• Cry out to God to come save you, in the name of Jesus. Appeal to His mercy.
• Confess your sin to a trusted person and get the sin out into the open so it’s not hidden anymore.
• Ask for forgiveness and repent. Repentance is turning away from your sin. Ask the Holy Spirit to empower you and give you the strength to exercise self control and to renew your mind. 
• You need to renounce your sin and covenants made during your sin (sex is a covenant so you need to renounce the covenant with whoever you’ve been sleeping with) 
• Get delivered/ ask God to deliver you because guess what? Your sin has opened doors and given the enemy legal right to operate in your life.
• Take on the righteousness afforded to you by Christ and take off shame because there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.
• Sit at the feet of Jesus and build a relationship with Him.

*If you are reading this, and you are already married to the one you fornicated with, you STILL need to repent for the sins you committed before marriage, if you haven’t already, and ask God to bless your marriage. Because the effects of said fornication can bear horrible fruit in your marriage. 

If you have any questions, or want to reach out so I can walk with you through how deliverance works or you just want to talk, shoot me an email through my CONTACT on the website or send me a DM on instagram.