shadrach_ said:
I have heard it said that if you "convert" to Christianity but continue to live in sin, you were never really saved. So if myself and my fiancee still live together and have not married yet, does that mean we are not saved?
Mmm, no it does not, not on its own.
However, having a lackadaisical attitude toward sexual promiscuity, a feeling that it's "no big deal" should cause you to question your own heart. The way we know whether we know Jesus Christ, is by examining whether we're doing what He commands (1 Jn 2:3). This does not mean we know Him
by doing, it means we know Him
so we have some idea how much it means to Him. If you don't have that, then you might rightly question whether you're really relying on Jesus Christ. Or just playing at ... I don't know, religion, apologetics, philosophy of spirituality, or something else.
On the other hand, you're asking about it. That's an amazingly optimistic sign: something I was scared to death about in regards to my own thoughts before marriage. I feel for ya, too. I've been very close to that, and I really can relate. Look, none of us is immune to sin here. The older of us who've been through similar things are all vexed and hounded by our history of feeling wrong and doing wrong and hoping we can "get out of it" or not "make a fuss" about it. We want to minimize it, and we hope God minimizes our sin.
But that's not the way Christianity works. I want to spare you of that extended vexation, of handling this wrongly. If anything Christianity puts a magnifying glass on our sins, to show us our own sins' real ugliness.
If you can't desist, talk heart to heart with a Reformed pastor about it -- someone who won't minimize it to you. Consider the advice to be joined in marriage right now before God, and then work toward the ceremony if that's what you and yours desire. Consider how this will affect your walk, ten years' hence. Recognize it needs to be dealt-with well and wisely now. Then this one case will not dog you for years to come.
My bride of 20 years put it on our invitations, and I love to remember the thought: "to be united in marriage // before God," that day so long ago. The question is whether you wish to be married before God, as you're outwardly married yet not before Him.
One fact caught me up short when I was going astray in this area. Many of the martyred Christians of the first and second century were discovered by their accusers because of their desire for sexual purity. They quit going to the orgies instituted by Roman rule. They weren't present when the gods of Bacchus and Aphrodite were called into market on their feast days. This was probably after they had been going to the orgies and feasts -- otherwise they wouldn't have been missed.
But they were missed. They were discovered, convicted, and put to death. All because of their intense desire for purity before God.
That's the example we're left with from the early church. Would that we could keep up with it.
