I’ve been working with the principle that homosexual lust and sin is similar to heterosexual lust and sin. But culturally speaking, I realize that this is a poor first approximation.

1. Can a person with greed, believe on Jesus through the health and wealth movement, and make doctrinal room for his greed, and practice it and still be a Christian?

2. Can a sinner come to Christ while being a speeding driver and still speed and be a Christian?

3. Can a person who overeats and is overweight, come to Christ and still overeat and be a Christian?

4. Can a person who is lazy come to Christ and still be somewhat lazy and be a Christian?

5. Can a judgmental person come to Christ and still be judgmental and be a Christian?

And please note that in all 5 questions I presume the person still practices those things without any real spiritual disturbance or conviction.

6. Can a homosexual come to Christ and still practice homosexuality and be a Christian?

I have a one word answer for all those questions and that applies personally to all of us.

G R A C E

I would love to have rules and laws for everyone, and I would love to judge all who fall short of my template, and I would love to divide the sheep from the goats by my own perspective, I would love to do those things because it would satisfy my self righteous flesh, but everytime I begin to construct such a framework, grace tears it down.

I need to find a more compromised definition of grace.

And without a shred of sympathy or understanding many “fundamentalists” revel in lashing out at the gay community. Showing a redemptive spirit to a homosexual seems to strike fear in the hearts of some saints who are both insecure in their own grace and worried about the judgment of others.

People who are born with same sex attractions are obviously conflicted about Christ since the church has so often presented Him as a wall rather than the Door. If a person cannot be saved unless he both recognizes every sin as sin and stops practicing those sins, then no one is saved. Every person who comments on this blog is blind to some of their own sins and continues to practice sin both unknowingly and knowingly.

If the gate called “Grace” is not wide enough for gay people who may never achieve victory then that gate must be called “Law”. If we must give up sins to gain grace then it countermands the core definition of grace. And if a professing believer must show signs of forsaking sins to be called genuine, please tell me how many and which sins can be identified as “threshold”. And also tell me who has the insight to accurately identify who is in and who is out.

And the argument that some of us have experienced the urge to commit sexual sins outside of marriage is incongruous since same sex attractions cannot Biblically be satisfied. No one who is not gay can adequately identify with the depth of their struggle, no one.

It must really irritate the orthodox community when the offspring (Abraham Piper) of one of their heroes gets out of the theological barn and cannot be lassoed back. :)

http://judahslion.blogspot.com/2008/04/inconvenient-truth-matt.html

But we do a disservice to those struggling to overcome SSA by simply encouraging them to remain steadfast in their celibate homosexuality. This implies that God created them to be homosexual and then called them to suppress who He created them to be. Is that an accurate picture of the loving and just God we worship? We can help who we are attracted to through the redeeming work of Christ! We can help how we relate to those around us, both male and female.

I spent many years believing the lie that my cross to bear in life was one of loneliness and self-sacrifice because I was a homosexual Christian who was simply called to remain celibate. What a life of defeat! That is where the loneliness comes from. The Scripture is full of passages describing homosexuality as a past tense event in the life of believer. Paul tells us if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. God did not create anyone homosexual. We cannot help how we are tempted, but we can help what we do with those temptations when they are exposed to the light and truth of God’s word.

Misty is right, there is a lifetime of relational issues to overcome, there is a worldview that must be radically shifted, there is a root heart issue that must be put to death. If the believer who views themselves as a homosexual continues to view herself as such, she is believing a lie.

1 Corinthians 10.13 says, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” The act of homosexual sex is not the only homosexual sin. Jesus said to lust after a woman is to commit adultery in your heart. Sexual sins have a root issue in the heart. The temptation to identify yourself as homosexual is a temptation to view yourself as something other than what God created you to be.

But these points are nothings that should be launched from a distance at those struggling with SSA. Had someone sat down with me and given me a point by point analysis of this at the beginning of my journey from homosexuality, I would have balked at them and their high and mighty judgmental views. But there were people who were willing to struggle through Scripture with me. They answered hard questions, spent endless hours listening to me vent and self-justify my life. They walked with me as I demanded God prove Himself to be the all-sufficient sustainer.

People struggling with SSA need faithful Christians who are willing to walk with them with all of the grace and mercy and patience of Christ. But those faithful Christians must be equipped with the unwavering truth of who God is and who He created us to be.

Some people are born with a chemical predilection toward alcohol and will always struggle with drinking. Some people are raised in angry environments and their emotional orientation is hardwired from the start toward anger and rage — and they will struggle with it their whole lives. There is no question in my mind that some people are predisposed toward incest from childhood, and are oriented toward it in ways I will never understand. We are all predisposed toward pride. Anorexics have an inbred desire to starve themselves that they usually struggle with for most of their lives. Some of them have had this orientation as early as childhood. Others of us are rule-keepers who are predisposed toward self-righteousness — watch any classroom of small children and you will quickly spot them — they are the ones raising their hands when called on and sitting quietly in their chairs as asked. Most of them will be hardwired that way until they die and will fight legalistic tendencies throughout their lives.

So yes, the identity issue in homosexuality has often been underestimated by the Christian public — but only because we fail to see our own identity issues in our temptations which appear to be “more common.” It’s only that our sin struggles appear more common and less exotic than that of our homosexual friends. But they are real, and they are there.

Please don’t think it is empathy to isolate our friends with homosexual orientations into a “special” category of struggle that the rest of us heterosexuals could never, ever relate to and therefore we are relegated only to the role of listening rather than relating/interacting. We all have predispositions and identities from childhood that affect the way that we view life, make decisions, and decide what we are tempted by. It is well-intentioned but poor ecclesiology (sp?) to say that the rest of us are not “hardwired” from birth toward certain temptations in our identity and therefore could never have anything to offer a homosexual friend.

Oh, and if they do ask for a fix, be very wary. In my experience, while it’s possible for a person to want to be celibate, it’s usually a sign of a deep seated psychological issue (why do so many priests end up molesting children? hmmmmm) that needs to be addressed. And any gay person who “turns straight” is harming themselves and, even worse, their opposite sex mate by trying to live in denial. I’ve seen several marriages broken when one partner finally admits s/he is gay and it’s just awful.