advice needed on punishment for past sin

[Sonnessa]

Hello brothers and sisters. I am currently a 22 year old struggling with OCD and God's mercy and wrath. I started making vows around the age of 16 and usually I typically make it around asking for punishment for committing a sin and breaking the vow as an incentive to keep it. Most recently I've asked to be killed in a plane crash if I didn't stop doing sexual sin after vowing not to do it again. I think even after repenting you can still experience punishment for doing the sin. The problem is my friends are really trying to push to go on a trip at the end of August and I don't know what to tell them. I'm afraid. I can't just tell them since we planned this (didn't know we would be flying) and now I feel constricted. I don't want to end like Anais and Sapphira or the corinthians eatings the lords supper wrongly (both killed because of sin) but at the same time I'm being told to trust God's mercy. I'm so confused. Some advice and prayer would be helpful thanks.

 

[Sketcher]

Fortunately, God has a mind and a will and the ability to say "no" to whatever we ask.

I think you should repent of that sin, whatever it was, go on the trip, and pray for safe journeys. Go in faith.

 

[Sonnessa]

Fortunately, God has a mind and a will and the ability to say "no" to whatever we ask.

I think you should repent of that sin, whatever it was, go on the trip, and pray for safe journeys. Go in faith.

So you think it should be fine?

 

[Sketcher]

So you think it should be fine?

I think most of the problem is between your own ears, and that God wouldn't crash a plane with dozens or hundreds of people on it simply because one of them committed a sexual sin within the last eight years.

 

[Sabertooth]

No answer given to your secondary problems will "stick" until you deal with the OCD (your most pressing problem).

1. Do you have a psychiatrist?
2. Do you attend a church that has a healing ministry?

 

[Sonnessa]

No answer given to your secondary problems will "stick" until you deal with the OCD (your most pressing problem).

1. Do you have a psychiatrist?
2. Do you attend a church that has a healing ministry?

Working on the second one and seeing him for the second time tomorrow. Problem is I might have to take an unexpected trip in two weeks or so and I'm freaked.

 

[Sabertooth]

Problem is I might have to take an unexpected trip in two weeks or so and I'm freaked.

If you are going to be there for a while, see if that place is close to one of those churches.

 

[Tolworth John]

am currently a 22 year old struggling with OCD and God's mercy and wrath. I started making vows around the age of 16 and usually I typically make it around asking for punishment for committing a sin and breaking the vow as an incentive to keep it.

Let's keep things simple.
Jesus paid the penalty for All your sins.
God/Jesus doe not make bargins with us, so vows etc are pointless. God expects obedience.

Your fears about your vows and dying in a plane crash are irrational, they have no basis for believe in he bible because any sin involved has been forgiven.

Please see your therapist about getting help in coping with your ocd and intrusive thoughts.
There is a site:-
'25 tips for successfully treating your ocd'.
This has helpful methods of dealing with intrusive thoughts, read it, share it with your parents, your pastor and doctor/therapist, so they can help you.

As I have said your sins are dealt with, so rather than make umbilical promises not to sin spend your time praising and thanking God for what he has done in saving you and forgiving you your sins.

 

[NBB]

God loves us and don't punish us, he disciplines his childs only for our own good.
And he knows some people have issues, if your child is having issues and ask you to do something bad for them, would you do it? of course not.
So go in that journey without worries that God will crash the plane or something.

Also from my experience OCD is an spiritual issue (i had intrusive thoughts and obsessions) until i was delivered.

 

[Sonnessa]

God loves us and don't punish us, he disciplines his childs only for our own good.
And he knows some people have issues, if your child is having issues and ask you to do something bad for them, would you do it? of course not.
So go in that journey without worries that God will crash the plane or something.

Also from my experience OCD is an spiritual issue (i had intrusive thoughts and obsessions) until i was delivered.

Is there much of a difference between discipline and punishment? They can almost always be used in the exact same way in all contexts. And let's say I get on a plane and he decides to punish (erm discipline?) me isn't that something to consider?

 

[aiki]

Hello brothers and sisters. I am currently a 22 year old struggling with OCD and God's mercy and wrath.

As one who struggled with the same thing when I was a younger man, I'd suggest to you that OCD is merely a symptom of something else, and that, until that "something else" is dealt with directly, it will continue to make you fearful and OCD. This was certainly my experience.

I started making vows around the age of 16 and usually I typically make it around asking for punishment for committing a sin and breaking the vow as an incentive to keep it.

Such vows assume you can accomplish in your life what God says in His word only He can accomplish. Your vows will never be as powerful and transformative as the Holy Spirit at work in you. Maybe its time to leave off trying, by self-manipulation, to force yourself to a kind of living only God can bring you into.

Most recently I've asked to be killed in a plane crash if I didn't stop doing sexual sin after vowing not to do it again. I think even after repenting you can still experience punishment for doing the sin.

Do you really think God is moved by such stuff? Do you honestly think you can obligate and manipulate God by these means? As your OCD indicates, you are trying to operate from a basis of fear, of self-preservation, in living as a Christian. I can tell you such a basis for Christian living is doomed to failure. It is totally apart from the means God has supplied to His children by which they might walk rightly with Him in joy, peace and strength.

The problem is my friends are really trying to push to go on a trip at the end of August and I don't know what to tell them. I'm afraid. I can't just tell them since we planned this (didn't know we would be flying) and now I feel constricted. I don't want to end like Anais and Sapphira or the corinthians eatings the lords supper wrongly (both killed because of sin) but at the same time I'm being told to trust God's mercy. I'm so confused. Some advice and prayer would be helpful thanks.

Sorry to be blunt, but your view of God and your relationship to Him is profoundly awry. The First and Great Commandment isn't to fear God but to love Him with all of your being. (Matthew 22:36-38) Paul the apostle wrote that anything we say, or know, or do as a Christian, if it doesn't arise from a heart of love, first for God and then for others, is utterly useless! (1 Corinthians 13:1-3) The apostle John wrote, too, that "perfect (mature, complete) love casts out fear." (1 John 4:16-19) There is no place for fear in a Christian's walk with God; in particular, the craven fear of one expecting punishment, the fear of a prisoner, or a slave under bondage to a hard a cruel Master.

Fear is ultimately self-serving. We fear for ourselves, for our safety and comfort, for our well-being. Fear is, at bottom, selfish. Fear makes us self-obsessed, looking, not constantly at God, but inward at ourselves. And this is, I believe, why God rules it out completely as any sort of a basis upon which to interact with Him. We can't be occupied with Him - as we were made to be - and be occupied with ourselves, too.

It appears that you see God primarily as a threat, a terrible danger to you both now and in eternity. This is so far from the truth for a person who is truly born-again (John 3:3-7), that it makes me wonder what you understand of the Gospel. God shows Himself our Friend, the Lover of our Soul, our Redeemer, our Rescuer, our Saviour, in the Good News of salvation (John 3:16-17; 1 John 4:10-11; Romans 5:8). In the work of Jesus on the cross, we see awesome mercy, grace and love, not just the hard, threatening justice of God. God loves you. A lot. More than can be described, I think. And it is this love, above all, that He communicates to us in the Gospel.

God extended His love to you when you were a sinner, bound under the power of the World, the Flesh and the devil. (Ephesians 2:1-9). When you were at enmity with God, alienated from Him by your wicked deeds (Colossians 1:21-22), God moved toward you in love, drawing you to Jesus Christ. Your sin was not a barrier to God offering to you joyful, peaceful communion with Himself. And when, by trusting in Christ, you were clothed in his righteousness (Romans 13:14; Romans 5:1-2; Romans 5:17-20), made spiritually alive by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5-7; Romans 8:9-11; 1 John 4:13), you were adopted into God's family forever, secure, not in your own righteousness, but in the perfect righteousness of Jesus. Why, then, do you fear? Why are you playing these "vow games" with God?

I would urge you to take a look at the posts I've made in the Discipleship subforum of this website. They will help you greatly in obtaining a clearer, more biblical, and more real relationship with God than I suspect you have at the moment. Here are a few links:

Dissolving Fear.

Wrestling with Myself: An Unwinnable Battle.

The Christian Life: Humble Yourself, Yield, Submit, and Die.

 

[NBB]

Is there much of a difference between discipline and punishment? They can almost always be used in the exact same way in all contexts. And let's say I get on a plane and he decides to punish (erm discipline?) me isn't that something to consider?

Discipline means whatever happens if going to make you a better christian. Punishment means you suffer and nothing good comes out of it because you deserve it. But God doesn't punish his childs.

 

[Sonnessa]

Discipline means whatever happens if going to make you a better christian. Punishment means you suffer and nothing good comes out of it because you deserve it. But God doesn't punish his childs.

I'll agree to disagree. I don't see much of a difference. Both are negative affirmations for wrong doing.

 

[Benjamin413]

So you think it should be fine?

I believe you will be fine.

I do not believe God would kill someone because they asked Him to.

also, he would be killing your friends and everyone else on the plane. I cannot imagine He would kill all of them just to fulfill your request.

 

[MikeinSeattle]

God loves us and don't punish us, he disciplines his childs only for our own good.
And he knows some people have issues, if your child is having issues and ask you to do something bad for them, would you do it? of course not.
So go in that journey without worries that God will crash the plane or something.

Also from my experience OCD is an spiritual issue (i had intrusive thoughts and obsessions) until i was delivered.

How bad were the intrusive thoughts? And how were you delivered?

 

[MikeinSeattle]

Hello brothers and sisters. I am currently a 22 year old struggling with OCD and God's mercy and wrath. I started making vows around the age of 16 and usually I typically make it around asking for punishment for committing a sin and breaking the vow as an incentive to keep it. Most recently I've asked to be killed in a plane crash if I didn't stop doing sexual sin after vowing not to do it again. I think even after repenting you can still experience punishment for doing the sin. The problem is my friends are really trying to push to go on a trip at the end of August and I don't know what to tell them. I'm afraid. I can't just tell them since we planned this (didn't know we would be flying) and now I feel constricted. I don't want to end like Anais and Sapphira or the corinthians eatings the lords supper wrongly (both killed because of sin) but at the same time I'm being told to trust God's mercy. I'm so confused. Some advice and prayer would be helpful thanks.

I have struggled with the same issue of fear of Gods judgement. I am learning that God is far far far more merciful to us than we feel like He is. Meditating on psalm 103 has been the greatest tool so far that I have found to combat the fear of Gods punishment and or lifting of His protection over us. Psalm 103 makes it profoundly clear that God shows mercy to us as a father with his child BY NOT DEALING WITH US ACCORDING TO OUR SIN!!! (happy emphasis).

Another consideration to make concerning your specific fear of flying is that it would take a very very great deal of prayer power to actually bring down an airplane. A commercial airplane typically has hundreds of people on it and for your prayer to actually result in it being taken down all of those people would have to lose there spiritual protection. Not an easy thing to do. Any saints would have to be taken off the flight by divine power. Because you better believe your prayer is not going to get them killed. Besides all this it isnt easy for a commercial airplane to crash. And it would take a great deal of prayer just to bring about the mechanical failure that would result in the crash.

Your brief request for God to let you die in an airplane is very likely not to be granted unless you keep making it over and over again for a long time. And even then you would probably end up in a situation where you were invited to fly in a small aircraft with very few people besides yourself and there would likely be many signs that God would give you beforehand that that ride would be your last if you got on it.

I would recommend that you stop asking for death in any way since the far more likely scenario will be that God will allow you to receive some disease that will lead to an early death. He is merciful as other have said but He is also very very serious about answering prayer and He will give you the things you ask for even if they are bad things if you keep asking Him.

And yes, asking God to do something if you sin is a prayer. There is no difference.

I would recommend that you be very sure that the things that you think are sin are actually sin. Actually study the scriptures and ask God to help you to discern if they are actually sin. If you are going arround sleeping with girls then yes you are sinning but very few christian guys are doing that in my experience. Far more common is guys have a way to overblown definition of sexual sin and as a result they make it extremely difficult for them to function as a normal human beings without constantly "sinning". I dont know but it really sounds like this is more like your case.

I would recommend that you start studying the scriptures especially about Gods mercy and blessing and protection. Just find verses that talk about those things and then look up cross references for them and just start meditating on all the verses that that leads you to. This is what has helped me to overcome fear more than anything.

I also really really recommend you start praying the opposite of all the bad things you have been asking God to do to you all these years. Whatever it is you have asked Him to do start asking for the opposite because all those thing are very likely to start manifesting in your life if they have not already. Listen to a sermon (your words become your reality by Joel Osteen). Yes I know everybody likes to put him down but the things he says in that sermon are true.

Also stop making vows. It only brings condemnation. James 5:12 says do not swear. Vowing is swearing as far as I can tell through my study. Find other ways to keep yourself from sin. After your sure that what you are doing is actually sin.

Hope it helps.

 

[tturt]

Sonnessa are you familiar with these Scriptures?

Every word of God is tried and purified; He is a shield to those who trust and take refuge in Him." Pro 30:5

Jesus said "...It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Matt 4:4

God knows we're going to sin. Repent. (avoid the vows). In regards to our repented for sins, God says:
"far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us." Psa 103:12

"'This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;

17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Heb 10:16-17

When those incorrect thoughts come, immediately focus on Him and His Word such as these Scriptures. Repeat as needed. Rather than give our thought life dwelling on our sins, we can focus on God's forgiveness because of Jesus' sacrifice. 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." ( I John 1:9). "For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee." (Psa 86:5). "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." Psa 32:1 "To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;" (Eph 1:6-7).

 

[SANTOSO]

Hello brothers and sisters. I am currently a 22 year old struggling with OCD and God's mercy and wrath. I started making vows around the age of 16 and usually I typically make it around asking for punishment for committing a sin and breaking the vow as an incentive to keep it. Most recently I've asked to be killed in a plane crash if I didn't stop doing sexual sin after vowing not to do it again. I think even after repenting you can still experience punishment for doing the sin. The problem is my friends are really trying to push to go on a trip at the end of August and I don't know what to tell them. I'm afraid. I can't just tell them since we planned this (didn't know we would be flying) and now I feel constricted. I don't want to end like Anais and Sapphira or the corinthians eatings the lords supper wrongly (both killed because of sin) but at the same time I'm being told to trust God's mercy. I'm so confused. Some advice and prayer would be helpful thanks.

Dear one,
I would like you to consider what we have heard in Proverbs:

if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth, -Proverbs 6:2
then do this, my son, and save yourself, for you have come into the hand of your neighbor: go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor. -Proverbs 6:3

Dear one,
If you have made vows to God in ignorance! Dear one, go, hasten and plead urgently with God.

Dear one,
Seek for the Lord’s mercy and pray like David have prayed in Psalms 32:5

I acknowledged my sin to You, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,"that I have made vows in ignorance and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Amen

Pray again dear one, like what we heard in Psalms 130.

Out of the depths I cry to You, O LORD!
O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

If You, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness, that You may be feared.

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in His word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.

I, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with Him is plentiful redemption. And He will redeem me from all his iniquities. Amen

Dear one, humble yourself and pray again like Psalms 51.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to Your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, You delight in truth in the inward being, and You teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Amen

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will return to You. Amen.

Dear one, pray again and hide yourself in His love.

Beloved Jesus Christ,
Grant me the strength to praise and glorify You.
Lord,
Grant me the strength to order my conduct aright,
for You will show me the salvation of God.
Amen.

So dear one, seek the Lord’s strength continually, and don’t make any more vows.
Seek His strength, that you may do what He has commanded You.

To God be all glory and thanksgiving. Hallelujah.Amen.

 

[NBB]

How bad were the intrusive thoughts? And how were you delivered?

They were a 'hammering' of some thoughts against God that tormented me greatly, i thought they were my thoughts, until i discerned something that God showed me and drove it away with deliverance (just using the name against that thing...).

 

[NBB]

I'll agree to disagree. I don't see much of a difference. Both are negative affirmations for wrong doing.

God disciplines us to our own good like a loving father would do... the outcome is you will be a better christian after that. Punishment does not bring anything good its just destructive. I think the difference is clear.