Hey Johnathan,

I believe it is something that must be discussed when the relationship is getting serious as it is difficult to start a deep relationship when you are not being honest with your partner.

However, it is important that you forgive yourself. I will pray for you, that you can feel God's forgiveness and that you will forgive yourself.

Joshua Harris discusses this dilemma in his book "Boy meets girl". His wife was not a virgin and it was incredibly difficult for her to tell him that she was not a virgin. It is a good book to read and I would recommend it.

Jessica

I tuned in late last week to this comment so sorry to only just get around to it now. It touched a raw nerve as when this happened to me it really destroyed who I wanted to be as a Christian and is still affecting me 18 years later. I believe that Jonathon must be a very strong Christian to feel this amount of guilt. I had the Lord's peace recently that this IS a sin, but so are many other things we do even while we are Christians. So the process is the same. We need to confess our sin, and I had to do this even today to my very traditional Bible-believing Pastor! My advice for the pittance it's worth is Pray to the Lord and repent, so you don't make the same mistake again. My mistake was I didn't deal with it, made similar mistakes in the future, and ended up making a mess standing on my own strength instead of the Lord's. So while I said to myself I would never do it again, and I said to whoever I was with I wanted to wait until marriage, the same thing happened over and over again. I'm guessing you don't want to be a serial sinner... You may need to recognise what went wrong the first time where your weakness took over. With me it was lying on the bed for company and "not doing anything" which was really stupid thinking because of course it did. Is your relationship a courtship? Do you want to marry this girl? Are you stringing her along? Do you want to take her from her future husband to get payback for what happened to you? I recommend beside the Bible a course run by some churches called "celebrating recovery". It will help you get the reassurance that you are forgiven in Christ. But you may want to watch that the same thing doesn't happen again because you may find you fall into a pattern as I did and each time you will feel worse and in a deeper pit and even further from Christ until you wonder how on earth you get back. Just confess and move on! It's behind you now. I think you're awesome for recognising this as a sin and wanting to deal with it now, especially in this day and age. If you come through it you will be an inspiration to others.

Jonathan, you should forgive yourself for your previous sexual choices and remember that according to Romans 8:1 "There is no condemnation now for those who live in union with Christ Jesus."