I used to write romantic fiction, and even though I no longer do, I still have impure thoughts sometimes. I feel like Satan is using my previous job to attack my mind. I rebuke him, and pray to Jesus everyday to help me leave my old life behind. Will God judge me for these thoughts? I feel guilty that they even pop into my mind.
It seems like we all have something that trips us up. It can be anger, jealousy, lust, envy, pride, the list goes on. Satan can drop these thoughts at the threshold of our mind, but they don’t become sins unless we let them across and consciously entertain them.
And even then, the Lord already knew about them and paid for them all on the cross (Colossians 2:13-14). They’re embarrassing to us, but we can’t be judged for them because Jesus already was.
Having forgiven us for all our sins, God can separate the believer from the behavior. In Romans 7:20 Paul said, “If I do what I don’t want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is the sin living in me that does it.”
In other words, from God’s perspective its not us, it’s our sin nature that’s to blame when we sin. Because of our faith in what Jesus did for us at the cross, He sees us as if that part of us is already gone.
In the meantime, by rebuking these thoughts and asking Jesus to deliver us from them, they will come less frequently.
And since the penalty for our sins has already been paid, when we confess we are forgiven and purified from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, The old has gone, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17).