How Can I Help My Cousin And Also Not Fall In To Sin Myself As I Already Have?
Question : I am Ben, 24, an undergraduate, a Christian leader, a Hostel leader and soon to be SUG leader. I have been a straight guy since I met Christ around 2008, that means I have not made any relationship with the opposite gender... Candy my cousin sister, 14yrs, used to be under my care 2yrs ago. I mean, I once fed, clothed and paid her school fees, and will always advice her to live a exemplary lives like her female role models. That was two years ago. During the last holiday, after observing her attitudinal changes, I psychologically queried her and learnt that she had lost her purity a week ago. I was envious and sad which my imagination later transformed into lust. Within five hours of that dirty discovery, I took her to bed and did not rape but had consensual sex. Of course, it was not just once. I felt guilty afterwards, but swept it under the rug, (lets just say I repented again when I came back to Campus). She wasn't free either, but our relationship declined to the extent that the last time I called home, she said that she doesn't want to talk to me. Tales keep coming from home that she has gone promiscuous. She had warned me not to come home for Christmas, but I want to help her get back her senses and live a decent lifestyle. She must be desperately sad with me, but I can't bear the burden of seeing her running head log with hormones to the detriment of her smart brain any longer, but I am afraid that going home might lead to another unwanted intimacy, or she might let the cat out during one of her outbursts, or she might even disgrace me with an open display of her disdain towards me. What do you advice? Should I bury the latchet and answer good names on campus, (and at home) or should I go back to history to undo this act. Biblical aid is most welcome. Gracias! Many thanks!
Answer : Praise the Lord!
The passage is Leviticus 18:6-17. It is concerned with incest. The opening verse is, "None of you shall approach any blood relative of his to uncover nakedness; I am the LORD. (Lev. 18:6, NASB). The literal Hebrew translation of this passage is as follows: "Any man to all blood relative not come near to uncover nakedness, I am the Lord."
The Hebrew words for "uncover nakedness" imply sexual relations. Ezekiel 16:36 makes this clear. The blood relatives are defined in between mother and son (Leviticus 21:2-3). (Note that sexual relations between father and daughter are prohibited by Lev. 18:6 and 21:2-3; Leviticus 18:7-8), with stepchildren (Leviticus 18:8, 17), with an aunt (Leviticus 18:12-14), with sister or half-sister (Leviticus 18:9; Deut. 27:22), with half-sister and stepsisters (Leviticus 18:11), with daughter-in-law (Leviticus 18:15), with your sister-in-law (Leviticus 18:16), with your granddaughter (Leviticus 18:10), with your step-granddaughter (Leviticus 18:17). These prohibitions are addressed to men. The reverse applies to women. This is a complete list of the sexual relationship or marriages that God forbids. This list includes those found in Leviticus 20:11-21; Deuteronomy 22:30; Deuteronomy 27:20-23; and 1 Corinthians 5:1.
In other words the Bible insists, "You must never have sexual relations with a close relative, for I am the Lord." (Lev. 18:6, NLT).
Your should repent of your wrong doing to the Lord and change your mind...ask sorry to your cousin Sister for having gone beyond the line of a care taker to have sex with her physically. Deep repentance will from now on make you run away from situations that might come to test you in this regard.
See what the Bible says regarding your situation...
"Stay away from every kind of evil." (1 Thess 5:22, NLT).
"Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." (2 Tim 2:22, NIV).
"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body." (1 Cor 6:18, NIV).
You see that something deep within you is being destroyed as you step in to sexual relationship with the opposite gender outside your marriage, your soul life which should be a like watered garden always filled with God's joy and peace and righteousness becomes like a place filled with sewage water with no plants and flowers of fragrance within you (Isa 58:1; Jer 31:12; Rom 14:17).
You lose a part of your soul with the one who you initiate your sex with, so sex is never planned by God to be used anywhere outside of marriage.
My humble request to you is to, never continue in this sinful way and destroy your own soul life (Prov 6:32). Remove your ways far from the opposite gender whether it is with your close relation or anybody, ask the Lord to keep you in purity (Prov 5:8).
The Bible says, "It is God's will that you keep away from sexual sin as a mark of your devotion to him." (1 Thess 4:3, GWT).
1) In our generation, pornography is the main culprit that takes the fear of God to quench the light within our conscience which is the Church's treasure to gain wisdom and knowledge to have spiritual stability and the strength of salvation in our times where gross darkness is covering the earth rapidly like never before, so once the fear of God is taken away from the heart of godly people, they are vulnerable to fall in to temptation, so treasure the fear of God within you (Isa 33:6; 60:2). All men are visually driven, therefore you must choose not to set anything vulgar and vile thing like pornography before your eyes (Psa 101:3-4, NLT). So by the grace of God you should confess to the Lord if you have given in to such trap of the devil and keep yourself away from it by being cleansed by the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:7, 9).
2) Make sure you meditate upon the Word of God day and night so that you may flourish with the power of the Lord that will rest upon you and keep you away from the evil power of sin (Psa 119:9). The Word of God promises, "For sin will not have mastery over you, because you are not under Law but under grace." (Rom 6:14). You take a right choice and the grace of God will empower you to overcome sin. No matter how many times a righteous man falls by his weakness, as he confesses and resists sin, God will lift him up and set Him back in position with His power to have mastery over sin (Prov 24:16; Psa 37:24).
3) It is better to marry than to burn with lust (1 Cor 7:9), especially for young men who are prone to fall in to temptation the best thing for them is to get married and stay faithful to rejoice over the wife of their youth to avoid immorality and slide in to destruction (1 Cor 7:2; Prov 5:18).
4) Submit your will to God by humbling yourself of your weakness before Him and say to Him that without His power and grace you cannot overcome the sin that tempts you (Jam 4:7-8, 10), then have a constant time of communion with God through praying in the Spirit to build your faith and become powerful enough to resist the devil always (Jude 1:20-21). Resist the devil and he will flee from you when a temptation is in your mind level (1 Peter 1:13; 5:5-6, 7-8, 9; Gen 39:7-10). But when the temptation is physical, 'Run away from evil when you are pulled in to sinful temptation like Joseph and you will be blessed and victorious forever in your life because the Lord will continue to be with you in His tangible Presence.' (Gen 39:11-13, 21, 23). Run, run, run away from physical sin for your life, if you want to stay blessed in the Lord (John 10:10)!
5) You have already died to sin in Christ Jesus when He was crucified for your sins (Rom 6:6, 1-2), therefore when you want to sin, grace of God says that you are already free because Christ has died for you and has freed you from sin (John 8:32, 36). Because you are free, perish the thought to sin by renewing your mind saying that you are an over-comer in Christ Jesus, and therefore receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to overcome sin which sets you free from all bondage's and types of sexual sins (Rom 12:2; 8:37; Eph 4:22, 23, 24; 1 John 5:4-5).
6) Jesus Himself suffered for us in the flesh against sin like we do now, yet once he resisted against it and continued to suffer, he ceased from sin's power trying to rule over him (1 Peter 4:1). So we ought to arm ourselves with the same attitude against sin like Jesus and start to suffer rather than to give in to its fleeting pleasure. None of us have resisted sin even up to bloodshed (Heb 12:4), therefore God promises that when we suffer against giving in to sin, gloriously we will at a point of time through the grace of God will cease to operate naturally in the lusts of men and will start to live in the will of God as we have already wasted a lot of time in our life doing evil things that godless people enjoy--their immorality and lust which includes fornication, adultery, pornography and masturbation, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols (1 Peter 4:2-3). All your Brothers and Sisters around the world are tempted in the same way as you are in the area of sexual temptation, so go through the suffering to resist it for the sake of the Lord Jesus which will keep you under His grace always (1 Peter 5:9-10). Attitude to suffer against sin is a must to see the overcoming power over the same sin!!!
Finally, I would say that you cannot undo what you have done except by the grace of God which only God is able to do it in His time if you have humbly given everything over to Him (Titus 2:11-13, 14). Your sin will find you out, if not for now it might be later when you will have to pay for it shamefully before your family and others if you try to put in under carpet and act as though you never know anything about it (Num 32:23).
In other words, Nothing is hidden in the sight of God (Heb 4:13; Prov 15:3). He sees everything we do. He reads our mind, he sees our heart. He watches us 24/7 (Jer 17:10). Even if you think that it's only you who did this and that, even if you think it's only you who knows this and that, God knows everything done under the sun (and even under the moon and stars!) (Psa 139:1).
We cannot escape the consequences of everything we do. No sin is hidden from God. We will reap what we sow (Gal 6:7-8). So the next time you'll make a choice, think up over a time and not give in to fleeting sinful impulse which thrills temporarily but kills your abundant life of Jesus permanently which He gives you, through which you experience peace, joy, righteousness, fearlessness, liberty, confidence of faith, love unconditional and sound mind, thus corruption of the flesh which sucks out the abundant life of Jesus will only increase to make you miserable in its bondage unless you confess to God and repent of the sins you have done (John 10:10; 2 Tim 1:7). You can't escape even a bit of sin you will make!
Jesus went further to say in the same vein, "...There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known." (Matthew 10:26). In other words Jesus is saying, If you cover over you sins you will not prosper because very soon God will disclose all the secret sins of your life before the public if you now do not confess and abandon before him privately to receive compassion, mercy and forgiveness to get cleansed through his blood which has the power to keep you from stumbling back in to sin (Prov 28:13; 1 John 1:9; Jude 1:24-25). If you do not kill sin, sin will kill your abundant life of Jesus at the end and you will become miserably mad against God and everything in life later but it will be too late and you would have lost your precious time on earth which you could have utilized for God and godly living.
Just feeling guilty for having committed sin is not repentance, repentance is a complete change of mind of a 180 degree turn to think rightly according to what God says, then calling sin as sin and then confessing to God for it, then moving on to turn away from such evil things so that you will not fall again in to it by the grace of God. Finally setting boundaries for yourself as works befitting for your repentance, thus knowing how weak you are, you are turning wholeheartedly away from such temptations that might make you fall. Such true repentance will keep you in the fear of God.
Especially as a Christian leader your life must be a open book before God and men, you might struggle through every temptation in your mind and also overcome it day by day, but you should not dare to extend it to your physical level. If you walk pleasing to God, you will be kept away from all immorality by the power of God automatically (Prov 22:14). Now that you yourself have fallen in to sin, you will have no rights to tell someone else to keep away from sin, and you have lost your respect to speak in to the life of your cousin Sister. Let other elders of your family deal with her when they come to see her lifestyle, as for you, you keep yourself first in the way of the Lord to set an example for others to follow (Gal 6:1). Though my words are strong, I am not judging you as I myself struggle against sin and a man of like nature like you (James 5:17), who only by the grace of God I overcome as I judge myself first (1 Cor 11:31-32), I mean it when I say to you strongly because I want you to be a blessing to others in the coming days.
You live a godly life and set an example in the coming days for your cousin to follow you (1 Cor 11:1). If you are fearful of falling in to sin again, avoid the place altogether rather than knowing that there is a pit of sin and then going and falling in to it foolishly. Stay with your family in front of other members and do not go where you know Satan's snare has been set (Prov 7:24-27; 6:27-29).
If you are really sad for your Cousin Sister, you would have kept her in prayer and also would have confessed to her the sin that you had been involved with her before (James 5:15). Keep yourself under the protection of God's Spirit always by praying for your own self and also for others who are involved in sin to come out of it (Jam 1:5), so that God might protect and keep you from sin and at the same time might touch for those whom you are concerned about with His mighty power to keep them safe in His way for His Glory (1 John 5:14-16). The lack of repentance is the only sin that leads to death physically (1 John 1:17; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Cor11:29-30). First build your faith first and stand strong in the mercy looking for eternal life, then you save others like your cousin putting her out of the fire of the judgment of God with fear of God working inside you, hating the even the garments defiled by the flesh (Jude 1:20-21, 22-23).
My best advice is, when you are drowning, you get in to the salvation boat of Jesus Christ that saves you, then rescue others to come in to the boat to save their lives (1 Peter 3:20-21). The story of the fence that ate the crops should never be repeated in your life, but rather live in the fear of the Lord all day long (Prov 23:17). If you continue to walk in the fear of the Lord, you will continue to be blessed by the Lord, you will greatly prosper and will become a blessing to others in the coming days.
Much Blessings.....
Answer : Praise the Lord!
The passage is Leviticus 18:6-17. It is concerned with incest. The opening verse is, "None of you shall approach any blood relative of his to uncover nakedness; I am the LORD. (Lev. 18:6, NASB). The literal Hebrew translation of this passage is as follows: "Any man to all blood relative not come near to uncover nakedness, I am the Lord."
The Hebrew words for "uncover nakedness" imply sexual relations. Ezekiel 16:36 makes this clear. The blood relatives are defined in between mother and son (Leviticus 21:2-3). (Note that sexual relations between father and daughter are prohibited by Lev. 18:6 and 21:2-3; Leviticus 18:7-8), with stepchildren (Leviticus 18:8, 17), with an aunt (Leviticus 18:12-14), with sister or half-sister (Leviticus 18:9; Deut. 27:22), with half-sister and stepsisters (Leviticus 18:11), with daughter-in-law (Leviticus 18:15), with your sister-in-law (Leviticus 18:16), with your granddaughter (Leviticus 18:10), with your step-granddaughter (Leviticus 18:17). These prohibitions are addressed to men. The reverse applies to women. This is a complete list of the sexual relationship or marriages that God forbids. This list includes those found in Leviticus 20:11-21; Deuteronomy 22:30; Deuteronomy 27:20-23; and 1 Corinthians 5:1.
In other words the Bible insists, "You must never have sexual relations with a close relative, for I am the Lord." (Lev. 18:6, NLT).
Your should repent of your wrong doing to the Lord and change your mind...ask sorry to your cousin Sister for having gone beyond the line of a care taker to have sex with her physically. Deep repentance will from now on make you run away from situations that might come to test you in this regard.
See what the Bible says regarding your situation...
"Stay away from every kind of evil." (1 Thess 5:22, NLT).
"Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." (2 Tim 2:22, NIV).
"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body." (1 Cor 6:18, NIV).
You see that something deep within you is being destroyed as you step in to sexual relationship with the opposite gender outside your marriage, your soul life which should be a like watered garden always filled with God's joy and peace and righteousness becomes like a place filled with sewage water with no plants and flowers of fragrance within you (Isa 58:1; Jer 31:12; Rom 14:17).
You lose a part of your soul with the one who you initiate your sex with, so sex is never planned by God to be used anywhere outside of marriage.
My humble request to you is to, never continue in this sinful way and destroy your own soul life (Prov 6:32). Remove your ways far from the opposite gender whether it is with your close relation or anybody, ask the Lord to keep you in purity (Prov 5:8).
The Bible says, "It is God's will that you keep away from sexual sin as a mark of your devotion to him." (1 Thess 4:3, GWT).
1) In our generation, pornography is the main culprit that takes the fear of God to quench the light within our conscience which is the Church's treasure to gain wisdom and knowledge to have spiritual stability and the strength of salvation in our times where gross darkness is covering the earth rapidly like never before, so once the fear of God is taken away from the heart of godly people, they are vulnerable to fall in to temptation, so treasure the fear of God within you (Isa 33:6; 60:2). All men are visually driven, therefore you must choose not to set anything vulgar and vile thing like pornography before your eyes (Psa 101:3-4, NLT). So by the grace of God you should confess to the Lord if you have given in to such trap of the devil and keep yourself away from it by being cleansed by the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:7, 9).
2) Make sure you meditate upon the Word of God day and night so that you may flourish with the power of the Lord that will rest upon you and keep you away from the evil power of sin (Psa 119:9). The Word of God promises, "For sin will not have mastery over you, because you are not under Law but under grace." (Rom 6:14). You take a right choice and the grace of God will empower you to overcome sin. No matter how many times a righteous man falls by his weakness, as he confesses and resists sin, God will lift him up and set Him back in position with His power to have mastery over sin (Prov 24:16; Psa 37:24).
3) It is better to marry than to burn with lust (1 Cor 7:9), especially for young men who are prone to fall in to temptation the best thing for them is to get married and stay faithful to rejoice over the wife of their youth to avoid immorality and slide in to destruction (1 Cor 7:2; Prov 5:18).
4) Submit your will to God by humbling yourself of your weakness before Him and say to Him that without His power and grace you cannot overcome the sin that tempts you (Jam 4:7-8, 10), then have a constant time of communion with God through praying in the Spirit to build your faith and become powerful enough to resist the devil always (Jude 1:20-21). Resist the devil and he will flee from you when a temptation is in your mind level (1 Peter 1:13; 5:5-6, 7-8, 9; Gen 39:7-10). But when the temptation is physical, 'Run away from evil when you are pulled in to sinful temptation like Joseph and you will be blessed and victorious forever in your life because the Lord will continue to be with you in His tangible Presence.' (Gen 39:11-13, 21, 23). Run, run, run away from physical sin for your life, if you want to stay blessed in the Lord (John 10:10)!
5) You have already died to sin in Christ Jesus when He was crucified for your sins (Rom 6:6, 1-2), therefore when you want to sin, grace of God says that you are already free because Christ has died for you and has freed you from sin (John 8:32, 36). Because you are free, perish the thought to sin by renewing your mind saying that you are an over-comer in Christ Jesus, and therefore receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to overcome sin which sets you free from all bondage's and types of sexual sins (Rom 12:2; 8:37; Eph 4:22, 23, 24; 1 John 5:4-5).
6) Jesus Himself suffered for us in the flesh against sin like we do now, yet once he resisted against it and continued to suffer, he ceased from sin's power trying to rule over him (1 Peter 4:1). So we ought to arm ourselves with the same attitude against sin like Jesus and start to suffer rather than to give in to its fleeting pleasure. None of us have resisted sin even up to bloodshed (Heb 12:4), therefore God promises that when we suffer against giving in to sin, gloriously we will at a point of time through the grace of God will cease to operate naturally in the lusts of men and will start to live in the will of God as we have already wasted a lot of time in our life doing evil things that godless people enjoy--their immorality and lust which includes fornication, adultery, pornography and masturbation, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols (1 Peter 4:2-3). All your Brothers and Sisters around the world are tempted in the same way as you are in the area of sexual temptation, so go through the suffering to resist it for the sake of the Lord Jesus which will keep you under His grace always (1 Peter 5:9-10). Attitude to suffer against sin is a must to see the overcoming power over the same sin!!!
Finally, I would say that you cannot undo what you have done except by the grace of God which only God is able to do it in His time if you have humbly given everything over to Him (Titus 2:11-13, 14). Your sin will find you out, if not for now it might be later when you will have to pay for it shamefully before your family and others if you try to put in under carpet and act as though you never know anything about it (Num 32:23).
In other words, Nothing is hidden in the sight of God (Heb 4:13; Prov 15:3). He sees everything we do. He reads our mind, he sees our heart. He watches us 24/7 (Jer 17:10). Even if you think that it's only you who did this and that, even if you think it's only you who knows this and that, God knows everything done under the sun (and even under the moon and stars!) (Psa 139:1).
We cannot escape the consequences of everything we do. No sin is hidden from God. We will reap what we sow (Gal 6:7-8). So the next time you'll make a choice, think up over a time and not give in to fleeting sinful impulse which thrills temporarily but kills your abundant life of Jesus permanently which He gives you, through which you experience peace, joy, righteousness, fearlessness, liberty, confidence of faith, love unconditional and sound mind, thus corruption of the flesh which sucks out the abundant life of Jesus will only increase to make you miserable in its bondage unless you confess to God and repent of the sins you have done (John 10:10; 2 Tim 1:7). You can't escape even a bit of sin you will make!
Jesus went further to say in the same vein, "...There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known." (Matthew 10:26). In other words Jesus is saying, If you cover over you sins you will not prosper because very soon God will disclose all the secret sins of your life before the public if you now do not confess and abandon before him privately to receive compassion, mercy and forgiveness to get cleansed through his blood which has the power to keep you from stumbling back in to sin (Prov 28:13; 1 John 1:9; Jude 1:24-25). If you do not kill sin, sin will kill your abundant life of Jesus at the end and you will become miserably mad against God and everything in life later but it will be too late and you would have lost your precious time on earth which you could have utilized for God and godly living.
Just feeling guilty for having committed sin is not repentance, repentance is a complete change of mind of a 180 degree turn to think rightly according to what God says, then calling sin as sin and then confessing to God for it, then moving on to turn away from such evil things so that you will not fall again in to it by the grace of God. Finally setting boundaries for yourself as works befitting for your repentance, thus knowing how weak you are, you are turning wholeheartedly away from such temptations that might make you fall. Such true repentance will keep you in the fear of God.
Especially as a Christian leader your life must be a open book before God and men, you might struggle through every temptation in your mind and also overcome it day by day, but you should not dare to extend it to your physical level. If you walk pleasing to God, you will be kept away from all immorality by the power of God automatically (Prov 22:14). Now that you yourself have fallen in to sin, you will have no rights to tell someone else to keep away from sin, and you have lost your respect to speak in to the life of your cousin Sister. Let other elders of your family deal with her when they come to see her lifestyle, as for you, you keep yourself first in the way of the Lord to set an example for others to follow (Gal 6:1). Though my words are strong, I am not judging you as I myself struggle against sin and a man of like nature like you (James 5:17), who only by the grace of God I overcome as I judge myself first (1 Cor 11:31-32), I mean it when I say to you strongly because I want you to be a blessing to others in the coming days.
You live a godly life and set an example in the coming days for your cousin to follow you (1 Cor 11:1). If you are fearful of falling in to sin again, avoid the place altogether rather than knowing that there is a pit of sin and then going and falling in to it foolishly. Stay with your family in front of other members and do not go where you know Satan's snare has been set (Prov 7:24-27; 6:27-29).
If you are really sad for your Cousin Sister, you would have kept her in prayer and also would have confessed to her the sin that you had been involved with her before (James 5:15). Keep yourself under the protection of God's Spirit always by praying for your own self and also for others who are involved in sin to come out of it (Jam 1:5), so that God might protect and keep you from sin and at the same time might touch for those whom you are concerned about with His mighty power to keep them safe in His way for His Glory (1 John 5:14-16). The lack of repentance is the only sin that leads to death physically (1 John 1:17; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Cor11:29-30). First build your faith first and stand strong in the mercy looking for eternal life, then you save others like your cousin putting her out of the fire of the judgment of God with fear of God working inside you, hating the even the garments defiled by the flesh (Jude 1:20-21, 22-23).
My best advice is, when you are drowning, you get in to the salvation boat of Jesus Christ that saves you, then rescue others to come in to the boat to save their lives (1 Peter 3:20-21). The story of the fence that ate the crops should never be repeated in your life, but rather live in the fear of the Lord all day long (Prov 23:17). If you continue to walk in the fear of the Lord, you will continue to be blessed by the Lord, you will greatly prosper and will become a blessing to others in the coming days.
Much Blessings.....
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