Boy Meets Girl - Say Hello to Courtship (21 page)

She stopped crying. She looked me straight in the eyes and said, "You're absolutely right. I have done something even worse than killing my baby. My sin is what drove Jesus to the cross. It doesn't matter that I wasn't there pounding in the nails, I'm still responsible for his death. Do you
realize
the significance of what you are telling me, Becky? I came to you saying I had done the worst thing imaginable. And you tell me I have done something even worse than that."

I grimaced because I knew this was true. (I am not sure that my approach would qualify as one of the great counseling techniques!) Then she said, "But, Becky, if the cross shows me that I am far worse than I had ever imagined, it also shows me that my evil has been absorbed and forgiven. If the worst thing any human can do is to kill God's Son, and
that
can be forgiven, then how can anything else-even my abortion-not be forgiven?"

I will never forget the look in her eyes as she sat back in awe and quietly said, "Talk about amazing grace." This time she wept not out of sorrow but from relief and gratitude. I saw a woman literally transformed by a proper understanding of the cross.

Just like the woman in this story, we need to hear the bad news of the Cross before we can receive the good news. And for sinners like you and me, there's almost too much good news to take in.

I want to show you three wonderful-and very practical-ways that a proper understanding of the Cross can affect your relationship.

1. Because of the Cross, you can be absolutely sure of God's love for you and His complete forgiveness of your past sin.
The Bible tells us the steps to take to receive God's grace. First, we must repent of our sin and ask Him to forgive us. Second, by faith we believe that Jesus died in our place and rose again.

If you've done this, guess what? You
are
forgiven. It's finished. First John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." There's no probation time, no trial period. Yes, you may suffer from ongoing consequences in your life because of sin, but there will be no punishment from God. Christ has taken every last drop of God's wrath.

And your forgiveness is real whether you feel it or not. Recently I helped produce a three-part video series called
Searching for True Love.
On the second tape, entitled Purity, I asked my friend Travis to share the story of how he had experienced God's forgiveness for sexual sin. The story he humbly told was a compelling testimony of how the Cross overcomes feelings of condemnation.

"When I look at myself," Travis said, "there's no question that I'm overwhelmed at my own unworthiness. But when I remind myself of what God's Word says to me and what His promises are-that He is faithful when I have been faithless and that His kindness and mercy to me are based not on what I have done, but on the righteousness of His Son-that's when I

Travis has to
constantly
remind himself of the good news of God's grace. "I am often tempted," he confesses. "I look around at the friends I have, and now the wife that I have, and I think, 'Lord, I don't deserve this.' And He reminds me, 'It's not what you've done; it's what my Son has done for you.'"

That's the heart of the good news of the Bible. Speak that truth to yourself every day. Take comfort in the words of assurance that God has written to you in Scripture:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)

"Come now, let us reason together," says the lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." (Isaiah 1:18)

He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:10-12)

In the light of the Cross, the Bible's promises take on a whole new brilliancy, don't they? You are pure and spotless before the Lord. Your sin has been removed from you an immeasurable distance-as far as the east is from the west.

My favorite promise is in Isaiah 43:25, where God says, "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more." Think about that!

You are clean. You are totally forgiven. You are His. Your past has no claim on you because God has made you new. Never forget it. Never doubt it. Never stop rejoicing at the miracle of God's grace.

2. Because of the Cross you can confess your past sin to your partner.
No question about it-telling the man or woman you love about past sexual sin is difficult. It might mean confessing a lie you told earlier. It might cause him or her to reject you and end the relationship. How can the truth of the Cross help? The answer is that it puts things in perspective.

The biggest problem in your life is not whether a particular man or woman accepts you, but whether the God of the universe forgives you. The Cross shows that your biggest problem -God's wrath-has been taken care of. Confidence and security in God's love can give you the courage to confess your sin to someone else with the knowledge that
God
has forgiven you.

Telling me about her past was one of the hardest things Shannon had ever done. But she was able to do it because she knew that God, the person her sin had offended the most, had

When you reach the point where you know that God has forgiven you and you are ready to tell the person you love about your past, you still need to ask yourself some practical, if difficult, questions. First,
when
should you confess past sins? Next,
how much
should you disclose?

The decision of when you tell the person you're courting about your past is based on several different factors. First, your primary motive should be to serve them. Your goal is to tell them early enough that they won't feel pressured because of promises they made before they got the information. For this reason, I think it's best to confess things of a serious nature
before
getting engaged. If you've already gotten engaged, you should come clean as soon as possible.

This doesn't mean that you're obligated to share intimate details of your life as soon as your courtship begins. Obviously, you should do so only if the relationship is clearly headed towards marriage. If you've reached the point where you are confident that you would like the relationship to lead to marriage, it's probably time to talk about past sin.

The next question is how much detail you should give in your confession. The authors of
Preparing for Marriage
have several helpful pieces of advice:

First, write a list of what you need to confess. "This might include events, choices, or hurts you've experienced. While you don't need to go into great detail, be sure to mention anything that you know will affect your relationship today."

Don't tell more than will serve the other person. "As you talk," the authors of
Preparing for Marriage
write, "explain why you think it's important to share these choices from your past, but avoid sharing more than is necessary. Be careful about sharing too many explicit details, as this can become a problem later in your marriage. By going into too much detail, you may give the one you love too much of the picture. Avoid morbid curiosity." This is something Shannon did very well. She told me all that I needed to know but encouraged me not to probe for information that would only torture my imagination later.

Finally, be patient with the ones to whom you confess your sin. Give them time to appropriate God's grace and examine their heart's response to your confession. Chances are they will struggle. They might pull away from you for a period of time. In some cases, they may even end the relationship. If that happens, try to remember that it's better that you worked through this now than after marriage. Use it as an opportunity to remind yourself how differently God has responded to your sin.

3.
Because of the Cross, you
can/orgive
the past sin of another person.

If you are the person receiving the confession in your relationship, I understand what a challenge this can be-especially if you have saved yourself sexually. I certainly wouldn't have been a virgin if I hadn't grown up a Christian, and I had suspected that Shannon wasn't a virgin when we first began our courtship. Still, I experienced a very deep sense of sorrow when she told me about her past relationships. I loved her. Sin had stolen something from us that couldn't be replaced. That was very sad for both of us.

If you're having to work through another person's past sin, let me encourage you to consider several things.

First, you have the opportunity to be a channel of God's forgiveness. Though it's easy to see only how their sin affects you, remember that it's probably twice as hard for him or her to tell you as it is for you to listen. Keep reminding them of the reality of God's forgiveness. As you process your own feelings, continually point them to the Cross and make sure they're rooted in an understanding of God's grace.

Second, don't allow what can be an appropriate sense of loss and disappointment at the effects of sin turn into self-righteousness or bitterness towards the other person. You may be a virgin, but you too are a sinner who can only be saved by the atoning death of Jesus.

Third, while you should forgive the man or woman you're in a relationship with, you shouldn't equate forgiveness with an obligation to get married. Depending on where you are in your relationship, there might still be questions to answer before getting engaged. Don't let this issue cause you to overlook other areas of concern.

I know of cases where the man or woman just couldn't deal with the fact that the other person had slept with other people. If you're not able to forgive and move beyond this issue, don't assume that getting married will fix the problem. Take your time; get counsel. If you can't reconcile it, be willing to end the relationship.

Finally, if you do choose to get married, make sure that you forgive like God does-choose to remember their past sin no more. As humans, we can't do it perfectly like God does, but we can refuse to dwell on the past. When it comes to mind, we can push it away As Jay Adams says, "Forgiveness is a promise, not a feeling."

When you forgive other people, you're making a promise not to use their past sin against them. My dad's advice to me before Shannon and I were engaged was very helpful. "You need to settle in your heart," he said, "that you will never- whether it's in the heat of an argument or under any circumstances -use her past as a weapon." That's the commitment I made, and by God's grace I've kept it.