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If you are the person who cheated, or the person who is cheating right now and cannot seem to stop, this teaching was written for you. This was not written to condemn you. And not to pile on more shame on something you are already drowning in. But because the truth told clearly is one of the most loving things we can do for one another as believers.

So here it is.

What you did was wrong. It was not a mistake. It was not just a moment of weakness. It was a choice. A series of choices you made without considering the consequences. And the problem with the consequences of what you have done is that they don’t impact only you.

Most people who have been unfaithful describe the affair as something that just happened. Certain circumstances led them into it. There was distance in the marriage. This other person made them feel a certain kind of way their spouse stopped making them feel. And they find the perfect words to justify their act.

But here is something you have probably never heard about adultery and what it really is.

The word adultery comes from the word adulterate. It means to take something pure and turn it into something that is poorer in quality by adding a foreign substance. When you pour something impure into something that was pure, the whole thing changes.

That is what adultery is and that is what it does to a marriage. It does not just break trust. It introduces something foreign into something God designed to be uncontaminated. And the damage is not just emotional. It is spiritual.

Genesis 2:24 says: "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh."

One flesh. God joined something that was never meant to be divided. And when a third person enters that space, the damage goes far deeper than most people realize in the moment.

Proverbs 6:32 says: "Whoever commits adultery lacks understanding. He who does so destroys his own soul."

Not just the marriage. Not just the trust. His own soul.

There is something that rarely gets talked about when people are in the middle of an affair. The damage does not stay between the two adults involved.

Children feel the rift in the home. They sense the distance. The tension. The careful phone management. The conversations that stop when they walk into the room.

And when they eventually find out, whether as children or years later as adults, it changes something in how they see themselves.

I have heard from children of parents who had affairs. The shame they carry that was never theirs to carry. The anger they cannot fully explain. The quiet fear that they are somehow marked by it. That they might repeat it.

You did not just make a choice that affects you and your spouse. You made a choice that is rippling into young innocent lives that had no say in the choices you made.

I really need you to pay attention to this.

The enemy hates your marriage. Not because of you specifically. Because of what marriage represents.

John 10:10 says: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy."

Marriage was God's idea. He invented it. He designed it. He called it good. And because the enemy specifically targets the things God designed, your marriage has always been in his crosshairs.

The person you were with outside your marriage is not a better version of your spouse. They are not the answer to what was missing. They are what the enemy offered you at a moment when you were vulnerable, disconnected or hurting. A counterfeit designed to look like something real. Something that could never actually satisfy what you were looking for because what you were looking for was never something another person outside your marriage could give.

The enemy knew exactly what he was doing. He found the gap and offered you something cheap to fill it.

That is not an excuse. You still chose to indulge in it. But understanding who put it in front of you changes the conversation entirely.

Every day you carry this, whether it is still happening or whether it ended, something shifts inside you. You become two people. The one everyone sees outside and the one who knows what they are doing when no one is watching. You sit in church and the sermons hit you differently. You watch your spouse still hold you in love and something turns over in your stomach.

And underneath all of the mirage you display is the knowledge that you handed something sacred to something cheap.

That weight is not just guilt. It is the soul bearing the cost of what Proverbs said it would bear.

Stop. Right now. If you are currently in an active affair, this is the only step that matters until it is done. Stop. Don’t tell yourself you need to have one last conversation. Every day you continue is another day you choose a counterfeit over your marriage, your spouse, your children and God. Make the choice and do not reverse it. No matter how difficult it feels.

Go to God with the complete truth. Don’t go to God trying to explain the circumstances that led you into it. Tell Him what you chose, how far it went and how long it lasted. God already knows. But something happens when a person stops hiding from themselves in their prayers. David described it in Psalm 51. That kind of honesty is the beginning of freedom.

Understand what drove you there. This is not about finding an excuse. It is about finding the wound that made the counterfeit look attractive. Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to destroy their marriage. There is always something underneath it. Understanding that wound is essential so you can bring it to God and to a counsellor who can help you address it properly.

Tell your spouse the truth. Before you have that conversation, remember who this person is. They stood in front of everyone they love, looked at you specifically out of every person in the world they could have chosen and said I choose you. They handed you their trust, their future and their most unguarded self in one irreversible moment. Choosing someone to spend your life with means trusting them with something you cannot get back. That kind of trust deserves more than being traded for something that will never bring you what you are actually looking for. Your spouse deserves the truth. And you cannot build anything real on a foundation that is still built on a lie.

Be accountable. Speak to a pastor, a Christian counsellor, a trusted believer who will ask you the hard questions regularly and expect honest answers. Accountability is not punishment. It is meant to protect you from yourself so you don’t fall back into the scheme of the enemy.

There was a woman brought to Jesus by a crowd ready to stone her for adultery. They reminded Him what the law said. And Jesus, after a long silence, said something none of them expected.

He told those without sin to throw the first stone.

One by one they left.

And then He looked at her and said: "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

John 8:11

Neither do I condemn you.

He did not undermine what she had done. He did not pretend it was not sin. He simply looked at her and offered her something the crowd was not prepared to give.

A way forward.

The same God is looking at you right now. Not with a stone in His hand. With the same question He has always asked people who have made a mess of something He gave them.

Do you want to go and sin no more?

That is the question. Not whether He can forgive you. He already answered that on the cross. The question is whether you are ready to stop, turn around and let Him start rebuilding what the enemy wants to destroy.

1 John 1:9 says: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

All of it. Not when you have earned the right. Not when you have suffered enough. Right now.

Go and sin no more.

✝ Kingdom Mantra

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Is there something you have been carrying alone that you have never brought fully to God? Hit reply to this email or drop a comment below if you are reading this on our website. I would love to hear from you and pray with you. God bless you and do have a great week ahead. ❤️