When I was twenty years old, I would go to church and feel moved by the worship songs, but I was living a life that was not pleasing to God. I started chatting with a married woman at church and, in inappropriate conversations, she sent me a seductive photo….

Even though I asked God for forgiveness and six years have already passed, my conscience still makes me feel guilty.

I don’t know if I have the responsibility to bring up that incident. I don’t want to talk to her husband, and I don’t know if his wife ever repented.

Today I am happily married to the girlfriend I had at that time. I confessed everything to her, and she forgave me.

Dear Friend,

We are very happy to hear that you understood the importance of confessing to your now wife and that you therefore do not have anything to hide from her. If more people would follow that example, there would be many more happy marriages.

It is also wonderful that you confessed your sins to God and asked Him to forgive you for the double life that you had been living. Many people, like you, go to church and enjoy the songs and the friends, but once outside the church doors, they live according to their own rules. They are not following Jesus Christ, God’s Son, and are not living the way that God has designed for us to live.

It sounds like the woman who sent you the photo was also living a double life, going to church while living according to her own desires. Hopefully, she did eventually confess to God and to her husband, but either way, you are not responsible for whatever she decided to do about it.

The fact that you still feel guilty is not an indication that you should tell anyone else about what happened. It was important to tell your wife, and you did that, but no one else needs to be told. What the other woman did is between her and God.

What your guilty feelings indicate is that you have a sensitive heart before God. You sinned (like we all do) and you asked for forgiveness. And we know that God has forgiven you because the Apostle John wrote that “if we confess our sins to God, he can always be trusted to forgive us and take our sins away.”(1)

Therefore, since you asked God’s forgiveness, you are no longer guilty. The guilt feelings have not gone away, but those feelings cannot be trusted. Those who are wise pay attention and choose to follow the Scriptures even when their feelings might cause them to do otherwise.

We wish you well,

Linda
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1 1Jn 1:9 (CEV)