What are the consequences of sexual immorality?

Nobody is immune to sexual temptation. It is a serious problem and deserves serious attention. This article is meant to be a helpful reminder of how terrible the consequences of falling to sexual temptation can be. Print these pages and read them often. Read them periodically and on a regular basis, especially while traveling or under special temptation and weakness. If You rehearse these consequences on a regular basis, you will be able to identify the fog of sin's deception which will motivate you to think and live purely today - which is the only way to prevent immorality tomorrow.

CONSEQUENCES WHICH CONCERN MY RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

• Grieving of the Lord who redeemed me.
  
• Displeasure of the One whose opinion most matters to me.
  
• Discrediting the name of Yahweh - dragging his name into the mud.
  
• Loss of reward and commendation from God.
  
• One day having to look at Jesus face to face and explain why I did it.
  
• Forcing God to discipline me in various ways.
  

CONSEQUENCES WHICH CONCERN MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY SPOUSE AND MY FAMILY

• Untold hurt to ________ (fill in spouse's name).
  
• Loss of ________'s respect.
  
• Loss of ________'s trust.
  
• If my blindness should continue or if ________ is unable to forgive me, I could lose him/her.
  
• Loss of my children's respect.
  
• Loss of my children's trust.
  
• If my blindness should continue or my children are unable to forgive me, I could lose them.
  
• Loss of example and credibility, nullifying my influence on my family who need to build on their relationships with Christ.
  
• Because of my present failure, future generations of my family may have difficulty in this area.
• Shame to my family would result.
  
• The probability that my mother and father would know about my unfaithfulness, and how it would hurt them (possibly even blaming themselves).
  

CONSEQUENCES WHICH CONCERN DISCIPLINES BROUGHT UPON SELF

• Shame and life-long embarrassment to myself.
  
• Discrediting my own name.
  
• Loss of self-respect.
  
• Terrible feelings of guilt are hard to shake; even though God would forgive me, would I forgive myself?
  
• Plaguing memories and flashbacks that could taint future intimacy with my spouse.
  
• Failure in the area of sexual temptation may affect my ability to to know "right from wrong" in other important moral areas, having defiled my conscience.

CONSEQUENCES WHICH CONCERN MY FRIENDS AND MINISTRY

• Shame and hurt to my friends and especially those I have taught about Christ and discipled toward spiritual maturity.
  
• Shame to my church family.
  
• Shame and hurt to those I work with at _____________ (fill name of business).
  
• Weakened faith of those I have ministered to.
  
• Loss of my children's respect.
  
• Irretrievable loss of years of witnessing to my unsaved friends and family.
  
• Possibly keeping some from accepting Christ, being lost for eternity.
  
• Years of training and/or experience in my ministry wasted for at least a long period of time, maybe for good.
  
• Surrender of the thing I am called to and love to do (consider aspects of my gifts as used in ministry).
  
• Following in the footsteps of others I know of whose immorality caused me to grieve.
  
• Pain to innocent people around me who would get hit by my shrapnel (ie. the sins of Achan, David, and others).
  

OTHER RAMIFICATIONS

• Bringing great pleasure to Satan, the enemy of God and all that is good.
  
• Laughter, rejoicing and blasphemous smugness by those who disrespect God and the church (2 Sam. 12:14) .
  
• Heaping judgment and endless problems on the person I committed adultery with.
  
• Possible physical consequences (pregnancy from adultery, STD's, AIDS, etc.).
  

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Keep your mind on the things of God, especially upon His Word. Here are a few scripture verses upon which to meditate:

Hold onto instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life.
     --Proverbs 4:13

I have made a covenant with my eyes, how then could I gaze at a virgin?
     --Job 31:1

Do not set foot on the path of the wicked, or walk in the way of evil men. Avoid it, do not travel on it, turn from it and go on your way."
     --Proverbs 4:14-15

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
     --Proverbs 4:23

And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
     --Romans 6:13

Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body... Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it never be!... Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body... For you have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body."
     --I Corinthians 6:13-20

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
     --Galatians 6:7

An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one woman (a one woman kind of man)
     --I Timothy 3:2

Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father, to the younger men as brothers, the older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, in all purity.
     --I Timothy 5:1,2

Bron: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-f007.html