WHAT IS A GAY PERSON TO DO...

WHO SURRENDERS THEIR LIFE TO CHRIST?

(This reply is a response to that question)

The key to this dilemma boils down to the same uncomfortable questions it always does for every one of us who is considering Christianity:  Who is God?  Does He know what's best?  What is His remedy for my dilemma?  This is why I stress the absolute necessity of objective truth, based upon God’s Word alone.  God gives no place for subjective truth or alternate reality.  Once we move the bottle, as it were – we’re adrift in our own sea of man-made rules which bend and sway as often as our daily emotions.  Those emotions, left to their own devices, are unstable concoctions ready to explode at any given whim or moment.  Something has to hold those in check and we have neither the ability nor even desire to do so without a relationship with Jesus Christ.  Notice I did not say God.  Most everyone, in some form or fashion believes in God, hence the argument.  If not for some at least mitigated belief in God, there would be no conversation.  A belief in God, however, has no power to change a life.   James 2:19 says, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder" James 2:19 (NIV).  My greatest concern, maybe moving me all the way to fear, is that we have a world of “professing Christians” who shudder at God, but refuse to believe and receive His Son in whose righteousness we are saved and by “whose stripes we are healed” Isaiah 53:5.

I know this seems long and tedious and doesn't answer the question about sex but the question is not about “sex” per say; it’s about who controls life and gives His followers, “…the desire and the power to do what pleases Him” Phil. 2:13 (NLT).  Apart from a relationship with Jesus Christ, we have neither desire nor power.  I’m going to quote a book everyone, including the LGBT community, questioning and non-questioning, should read. 

Rosaria Butterfield was a tenured Syracuse University English professor, who also held a joint teaching appointment in the Center for Women's Studies. As director of women’s studies, Butterfield promoted everything left, including her own lesbianism and pro-gay lifestyle.  The book,“The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert,” is her story of the dramatic change that led to, as she puts it, “a train wreck of contradictory feelings.”  Here is an excerpt from her testimony she gave to a group of students at Geneva College:

“One student asked: “how do you know you are healed if you are not having sex with a man?” In return, I asked him, “Why is my health as a Christian determined by having sex at all?” I went on to explain what has always seemed obvious to me, but often comes to a great shock to Christians. I explained that too often good Christians see sexual sin as merely sexual excess. To a good Christian, sex is God’s recreation for you as long as you play in God’s playground (marriage). No way, José. Not on God’s terms."

“What good Christians don’t realize is that sexual sin is not recreational sex gone overboard. Sexual sin is predatory. It won’t be “healed” by redeeming the context or the genders. Sexual sin must simply be killed. What is left of your sexuality after this annihilation is up to God. But healing, to the sexual sinner, is death: nothing more and nothing less. I told my audience that I think that too many young Christian fornicators plan that marriage will redeem their sin. Too many young Christian masturbators plan that marriage will redeem their patterns. Too many young Christian internet pornographers think that having legitimate sex will take away the desire to have illicit sex. They’re wrong. And the marriages that result from this line of thinking are dangerous places. I know, I told my audience, why over 50% of Christian marriages end in divorce: because Christians act as though marriage redeems sin. Marriage does not redeem sin. Only Jesus himself can do that.”

Butterfield goes on to say…

“When Christ gave me the strength to follow him, I didn't stop feeling like a lesbian. I've discovered that the Lord doesn’t change my feelings until I obey him. During one sermon, Ken (Butterfield's pastor at the time) pointed to John 7:17, and called this “the hermeneutics of obedience.” Jesus is speaking in this passage, and he says: “If anyone is willing to do God’s will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from myself.” Ah ha! Here it was! Obedience comes before understanding. I wanted to understand. But did I actually will to do his will? God promised to reveal this understanding to me if I “willed to do his will.” The Bible doesn’t just say do his will, but “will to do his will.” Wanting to understand is a theoretical statement; willing to do his will takes action.”

Butterfield, Rosaria (2012-09-06). The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Kindle Locations 494-500). Crown & Covenant Publications. Kindle Edition.