I broke a covenant with God

Jesus tells us not to make vows, precisely because it's all up to God, and we "cannot turn one hair white or black" (Matthew 5). Therefore, when we make vows based on our own abilities, we are in trouble. The focus is on us and our performance, and that miserable reality is exactly why we came to Christ. The Bible says that save Christ Jesus, there is nothing good in us. Better to admit we are sinners and dependent on God's mercy and grace, as did the tax collector in the parable, who was declared righteous. Instead of stressing yourself with carnal vows, fill your heart with thankfulness for God's forgiveness. Rejoice in Him, and with His help keep working on the strongholds that have a grip on your mind.

We all die eventually. I remember I was hooked on it the day I started as a small child and made a promise that I wouldn't do it or I would go to hell. Guess what? I spent the next few years feeling like I was going to hell. I'm not. I'm actually coming back from it.

What did happen though was I became addicted to inappropriate contentography and sex. It stayed as a hidden side of me. I became unfaithful and my relationship with God was cut off. Later I became alcoholic and codependent. I developed an almost split personality. My relationships with myself and others became cut off. I kept going deeper into sin and further away from God. Sex was God, and no man serves two masters. I sacrificed people I loved to it. I sacrificed myself to it.

There are 12 step recovery programs though and you can enter them. I entered for alcoholism, sobered up and found that I was a sex addict and that had been steering my life since the time I was 11. That's OK. I can see now that I didn't have a choice from the start and how it warped my life and damaged those around me. It doesn't have to be that way anymore, and I do have a choice today. Recovery gave me a chance to start from scratch and brought me back along a different path to a God who was waiting for me all along.

It's a long and lifelong process and there is work involved, but you will also find honesty, fellowship, support and progress if you want it. A chance to help yourself and others. And a different way to look at (and be seen by) God as well as yourself.

If you can stop, stop. I think many people can just by prayer, faith, repentence, an accountability partner. If God lifts it from you, great. If you can't though and are a genuine addict and are praying for help and want help, realize the God has already put organizations like these in place, as answers to those prayers in advance. Things can get better instead of worse.

Sexaholics Anonymous – The Official Website for Sexaholics Anonymous, a Program of Recovery from Sex and Lust Addiction

Self needs to die, dharmmy.

And become alive in God's love which makes it easy for us to control ourselves . . . while we are so busy with loving people instead of only or mainly picking and choosing who we can use.

dharmmy said:

Hi. I am addicted to inappropriate content and masturbation. I tried to stop by making a promise/covenant to God that the day that I touch or have premarital sex, may I die.

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And now you see why making such vows is foolish. In-and-of yourself you simply can't keep them. You can only produce more of you. Only God can make you more like Himself, more godly. So, stop making God promises you can't keep and start surrendering yourself moment-by-moment to God's will and way and depending upon Him to transform you. This is the road to freedom from all sin.

dharmmy said:

I included premarital sex because I am in a long-distance relationship, we are both christians but the temptation is unbearable when we see each other that I know we may end up having sex pretty soon.

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A self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever heard one. If you see that being together will bring you into sin, don't see one another! Why would you put yourself (and your girlfriend) in a place where you know you will be badly tempted to sin?! What's going on in your thinking that leads you to accept this as inevitable? Yikes!

dharmmy said:

Right now, I feel like I cannot keep the promise I made to God. I am scared I will touch.
I have actually given up on tying but I don't want to die.

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We all die. Sooner or later. Will you die because you have broken a foolish vow to God? I very much doubt it. But, as has already been said, there is some dying you need to do if you're going to walk rightly with God. Read Romans 6.

dharmmy said:

Now that I have made a vow and broken it, am I going to die?

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I suggest you meditate on this carefully, prayerfully.

The thing is we all need to do what you need to do, dharmmy. No one of us can get our own selves to do what is right. So we trust and rely on God and His grace which acts in us to bless us to succeed in real loving.

Dominating and dictatorial stuff for pleasure is not love. Stuff in you which is dominating and controlling you is not Jesus who is "gentle and lowly in heart" and who gives us "rest for your souls." (please see and feed on Matthew 11:28-30)

God's love is almighty so it is easy to control ourselves in God's love. Because I love my lady friend it is easy to have self control; this includes that I can rather easily stop in the middle of an argument and apologize, and tell her she can have the last word God's grace is almighty in us to make it more and more easy to do all which God means by His word. And tenderly sharing and caring is so more enjoyable than just lust pleasure. Love does not have us just using anyone.

And we need one another Jesus people to help us with this. So, it is important that we do not only isolate ourselves with certain people we hope to use for what we want.

So . . . in case you have a real Jesus sister but you two are still not as strong in love as we can be, I would say make sure you do things in companionship with other Christians who are more mature than you are. And yes they might not want the excitements and pleasures you like, but being with really Christian people is so more good for us, than our own interests.

A minute of love with a really Christian sister does me more good than billions of universes of gold and silver could or that all worldly women of all eternity could do for me for all eternity even if they perfectly cooperated with me. The quality, of God's love, is better and I have various Jesus ladies who effect me with God's own love. So, I say make sure you get to know really Christian women, so you can appreciate what to expect in a relationship.

And therefore do not isolate yourself with her. Love her by welcoming her to share with your real example people, and welcome and encourage her to love and care for any and all people. If she is somehow really good for you, you need to share her with others so she can be good for them, also. Love others as yourself, by sharing her with others, too, so she can do them good, also.

But in case she is not really helping you to get real with God and get correction so you find out how to love . . . then she is not being an example you need. And how ever can you bring up children with her if she is not a sound example . . . along with you . . . so your example together can help your children to know how to love?

Our attraction to someone needs to be because the person feeds us Christian example, first, I now would say.

And, like I say, we all need to do better about why we get attracted to people for our romances and special friendships. We can have our way, can't we, of picking and choosing who we want to use?? I think we all are still not perfect, about this.

dharmmy said:

Now that I have made a vow and broken it, am I going to die?

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No, it just means you're like everyone else.

dharmmy said:

Hi. I am addicted to inappropriate content and masturbation. I tried to stop by making a promise/covenant to God that the day that I touch or have premarital sex, may I die. I included premarital sex because I am in a long-distance relationship, we are both christians but the temptation is unbearable when we see each other that I know we may end up having sex pretty soon.

Right now, I feel like I cannot keep the promise I made to God. I am scared I will touch.
I have actually given up on tying but I don't want to die.

I don't know what to do.

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...don't make promises to God like that. He knows that we very often fail to keep them because we don't actually have the will power to follow through.

It would be a better course of action if you instead try to begin to understand the nature of your addiction and as to what you've actually been caught up in. You have to go beyond simply reducing the whole problem down to the fact that you, like very many of us, often lack self-control.

The truth is, this problem isn't simply all about you and your moral failure; if you continue to think it is, then you'll probably never be able to get out of the addictive cycle.

Peace,
2PhiloVoid

dharmmy said:

Hi. I am addicted to inappropriate content and masturbation. I tried to stop by making a promise/covenant to God that the day that I touch or have premarital sex, may I die.
That's unrealistic and you know it.

I included premarital sex because I am in a long-distance relationship, we are both christians but the temptation is unbearable when we see each other that I know we may end up having sex pretty soon.
Don't be setting yourselves up to fail...if you dating someone, no more
being "alone together".
See, when you get serious about keeping your way clean, you will do
whatever is necessary to keep yourselves from sexual sin.

It is important that you learn to practice self control because if you don't
you will continue using inappropriate content and masturbating...getting married won't
cure you of using inappropriate content and masturbating...your flesh is use to you taking
care of it and feeding its lusts.

Right now, I feel like I cannot keep the promise I made to God. I am scared I will touch.
I have actually given up on tying but I don't want to die.

I don't know what to do.
Repentance.

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What else did you do other than make promise/or covenant?
What are you doing to keep yourself from sexual sin?
The inappropriate content Battle: Creating Your Strategy for Victory - Covenant Eyes

It's like keeping a garden free of weeds, if you only cut the weeds at surface
level they will keep coming back... but when you dig them out at they roots,
then you going to some headway.
Into the Bible...
Live according to the Word of God...Psalm 119:9-11
Don't yield yourself to lust...Romans 6:12:14
Repent of sin...flee(run) from temptation...2 Timothy 2:21-22
Arm yourself...Ephesians 6:10-17 (full armor of God)...Bible study on it here:
Ephesians 6:10-20 • The Full Armor of God

Write down all the scriptures that addresses lust on a piece of paper and read them aloud everyday. I guarantee you that the Word will wash all the impure thoughts away. You cannot win this battle by yourself in the flesh. Only God can do it for you. So you need to put in the effort yourself if you are serious about being set free from it. Here are some scriptures. You can search on the net for more.

Do not desire her beauty in your heart, Nor let her capture you with her eyelids. For on account of a harlot one is reduced to a loaf of bread, And an adulteress hunts for the precious life. Can a man take fire in his bosom And his clothes not be burned? Proverbs 6:25-29
Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. James 1:13-15
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Galatians 5:16-21

dharmmy said:

Now that I have made a vow and broken it, am I going to die?

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Dharmmy, you aren't the only one in this. I believe God knows our weaknesses and also merciful. You did it out of a pure heart (although in ignorance) but it only shows our righteousness is not by works (law) only by grace through Jesus Christ. Based on scriptures EZEKIEL 18:23, 2Pet 3:9, Gal 3:13. God doesn't take pleasure in anyone's death only that we would come to repentance, and the blood of Jesus is able to cleanse you and neutralise every oath and covenant if you believe. Moreover, mercy prevails over judgment James 2:13.

Shalom