Sexual Mistakes & All: God Is Not Mad At You

Article By Dianna Hobbs:: The New A-list Author

I was reading a story recently about R&B singer Toni Braxton and how she, for a long time, struggled with the guilt of her choice to abort her baby.

After she was married, when her second son Diezel was born autistic, she assumed it was God’s punishment for that secret abortion. For years, it haunted her.

You may have never aborted a child as Toni did (or you may have), but have you ever felt tremendously guilty about a sexual misstep.

Maybe you engaged in premarital sex, indulged in pornography, or got tied up in a same-sex dalliance for which you hold onto regret and shame. Somewhere, deep within, you wish you had never gone down that road and you hold onto the guilt of it all.

Sometimes, the enemy even tells you that God is angry with you and He is punishing you for what you did wrong.

Denim (L) Toni Braxton (M) Diezel (R)

But your history is not your destiny. What you did is not who you are. There is more to life. There is more to you.

As long as you have repented of your wrong—and by that I mean asked forgiveness and turned away from that sin—there is no need to hang onto any remorse.

What’s done is done. It cannot be undone, but God can and will wipe your slate clean, and wash you whiter than snow.

Too often, though, we view God through cloudy lenses. We project our negative past experiences with people and their criticism, judgment, and condemnation onto our loving Father and He’s nothing like man.

God is not sitting on His throne in heaven rehearsing every one of your slip-ups, mess-ups and hang-ups. You shouldn’t either.

If you are reading this and your sexual history has left a cloud of shame, guilt and regret hanging over your head, the Son has come out and is shining His light of grace and mercy upon your life.

This is not to minimize the impact of sexual sin or pretend like missteps don’t carry any consequences. They do. Sometimes the implications are physical, mental, emotional, or even a combination of all these things.

But God still has a way of casting our sins into the sea of forgetfulness and remembering them no more.

My dear A-lister, wherever you are in your purity journey, however many mistakes you have made, God is not mad at you.

He loves you and is more than willing to forgive you for every one of your sins ever committed.

I’ll leave you with this scripture found in Isaiah 1:18 NLT.

Come now, let's settle this," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.

The key is, once you make blunder, don't repeat it.

Your Abstinence Coach,

Dianna Hobbs

To learn how to better value yourself, uphold your standards and resist sexual compromise, get your copy of Dianna Hobbs' best-selling book The New A-list: Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, now available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Booksamllion.com.

SEXUALITY: Having the Right Doesn't Make It Right

Article By Dianna Hobbs:: The New A-list Author

I don’t do Twitter. I’m a Facebook kind of gal. I hope you’re already connected with me on my official page, because I just love sowing encouragement into your life as God gives it to me.

But anyway, someone actually sent me a tweet that Samantha Power, United States Ambassador to the United Nations sent out to see what I thought of it.

They wanted me to read it and weigh in.

So I did.

On May 17, Power wrote, “Love is not a crime. Sexuality is not a choice. No person should face discrimination because of who they are. #LGBT rights are human rights.”

After receiving the message, I scanned her Twitter timeline.

I would also like to note that, on May 15, Power sent out a tweet in support of the Christian Sudanese wife and mother who has been sentenced to death for refusing to renounce Christianity.

About that issue, the Ambassador compassionately said, we “must respect [the] right to freedom of religion.”

I find it intriguing that Power is able to support the rights of both homosexuals and Christians, though many people of faith disagree with the gay lifestyle. That tells me that, in her mind, it boils down to the question of freedom and what liberties everyone should have.  

Though her views on homosexuality are indeed different from mine, she is well within her rights to hold them as truth.

As a Christian person living in a pluralistic society, I realize there are many different viewpoints, ideologies and religions. There are varying perspectives that challenge my Christian ethos and yet, everyone has the right to live as they choose.  

But here’s a principle that I live by, which helps me remain focused and clear in a wayward society. Please, feel free to borrow it.

“Just because someone has the right to do it, doesn’t make it right to do it.”

That’s what I say.

God gives all of us freedom to choose.

Adam and Eve were given that liberty in the Garden of Eden. Sadly, they chose wrongly and ate from the forbidden tree, which led to their banishment from the utopia they had taken for granted. But God allowed them to act according to their volition, for better or worse.

We must also understand that people all over the world will do the same, whether their behaviors fall in line with our biblical belief system or not.

As an author, speaker and abstinence advocate, I share the truth as it has been revealed to me through God’s word.

Just as I believe homosexuality is sinful, I share the same views on premarital sex between heterosexuals.

Does the whole world embrace my views?

I’m sure I don’t need to answer that for you, but I will anyway.

Of course they don’t and yet, I feel compelled to continue speaking truth, but most importantly, living it, despite what others say and do.

You must be resolved to do the same thing, because your faith and morals will most certainly be challenged. But as long as you allow God’s word and not the passions, opinions and ideologies others hold dear to guide you, you’ll be alright.

Speak truth. Live truth.

If you don’t know what that is, in John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

Your Abstinence Coach,

Dianna Hobbs