Posted on 03/15/2015 5:58:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Editors Note: This is the third in a 10-part series that Matt is writing. Questions one and two can be read by clicking the hyperlinks.
Today's question is:
I have at least a dozen friends whose Christian kids, mostly sons, have come out to them in the past 18 months. For the church to tell a 16-year-old that "God's will" is a life void of romance is a tough message to communicate. What's your answer?
What an important question this is. I had previously decided to answer a different question today, but when this one came rolling into my inbox this morning I was certain that I needed to answer it immediately.
I want to say right off the bat that I do not believe sexuality to be as "fixed" as most people do. My first inclination as how to respond to this question is to say, "Don't doubt the transforming power of God! It's totally possible for a Christian's sexuality to shift away from what is broken and toward what is whole, if they will obediently put to death sinful vices like pornography, etc., in their lives. So don't presume that because someone is solely attracted to the same-sex now that will always be the case. They may always struggle with homosexual desires to a degree, but they could very well develop attraction to someone of the opposite sex, by God's grace."
But, I realize that many young Christians don't believe that yet. And while God is able to transform and provide a heterosexual relationship to someone who never thought it possible, He doesn't always do so. Many same-sex attracted Christians do, in fact, spend the duration of their days in this world as single and celibate people. So I'm choosing to approach this question from a perspective that it is entirely possible that if someone wants to handle his or her same-sex attraction in light of the Lordship of Christ, it may mean life-long singleness.
I think the first big mistake the Church can make is to assume that our response to a young Christian's "coming out" is going to be a message of bad news. We too often come at the situation thinking, "Oh no, how in the world am I going to tell this person that if they want to live a biblically faithful life, they're going to have to abstain from the all-satisfying joy of romantic relationship?"
The wisdom of this world will tell us that if we tell teens the Lord commands them to deny this part of themselves, we are hatefully communicating a message of bondage. But that is absolutely untrue and we must reject that mentality. A life of following Christ – no matter the cross one must bear – is a life of joy and true satisfaction.
Before a Christian even begins to counsel a young person who's expressing a struggle with same sex attraction, they must whole-heartedly believe that God commands abstinence from homosexual behavior for the good, and not the detriment, of a person. Any and all "restrictive" parameters that God sets around our lives are for our good and happiness, not for our suffering or our gloom. When He says, "Don't act out on that inclination!" He doesn't say it as a distant, apathetic, dictator-like authority; but He says it as a loving Father. By faith, we have to trust Him – as our Father and Designer – to know and command what is best for us.
I also believe it is mandatory that the church continues to recognize, and actually believe, that a romantic relationship is not a necessary component to living a healthy, fulfilled, God-glorifying life.
I do understand that "it is not good for man to be alone" (Gen 2:18); but who says that a single person has to be alone? One of the many blessings of the Christian life is that God has designed it to be a community project – not an individualistic endeavor.
I'm not going to deny that there is an element of loneliness to singleness in that you sleep alone, clean the house alone, sometimes eat alone, and so on. These things can be hard for all single people, heterosexual and homosexual alike. But overall, a single-Christian-lifestyle is not one of sullen solitary confinement. A young Christian coming to terms with their same sex attraction should never fear loneliness to the degree that many do. I have been celibate and single for five years in light of my same-sex attraction and my simultaneous love for Christ, and I am not alone. I have been a member of a few different churches since my conversion – one as small as 10 people – and in every body of believers I have been embraced as a family member. I eat dinner, have coffee, watch TV, go to games, run races, go to the movies, confess sins, express struggles, glean wisdom, gain encouragement, experience love, enjoy life, and follow Jesus with these people. Yeah, I sleep alone. And sometime I'll spend a whole day alone. But I am not alone.
It's also incredibly pertinent that the Church continues to communicate to young people struggling with SSA that while sex is a part of life, it is not life. Jesus is life. We do not need to express ourselves sexually to maintain a healthy spiritual and emotional state. I'm not saying that celibacy is easy – it most surely is not. Anyone that has ever refrained from any kind of sexual behavior for any reason for any amount of time knows that a massive amount of self-control is needed to do so. But is exercising self-control a harmful experience? Does exercising self-control rob someone of joy and life? The culture would say yes – but Jesus would say no.
"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."- Jesus, Matthew 16:24-25.
The denial of broken sexual desires – even if resulting in life-long celibacy – is the way to life and joy, not sorrow and sadness. According to Jesus, anyway. Will we believe Him? Or will we listen to the wisdom of this world? We've all got to make that choice. I pray that we all make the right one and continue to point young, same-sex attracted people toward the depth of life that is found in following Jesus – no matter what it may cost them.
Tomorrow I'll be tackling the following question: "What would you say to a married man with kids who wants a divorce to pursue a homosexual relationship?"
The same way it tells homely, unpleasant heterosexuals that 'God's Will' for them Is a Life Void of Sex, Romance?
any support for homos would have to be applied to pedos and the ‘polyamourous’ crowd
I can't even begin to fathom the thought process behind that.
Islam is all about submission to Allah, and the fatalistic belief that everything that happens is "Allah's Will".
Some people are attracted to this. Nothing is your fault, it's all Allah's Will. No need for personal responsibility, nor for striving to make yourself better.
It's also a reason why some people like Communism, and some cult movements -- to submerge themselves in The Group.
Read the book The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements (1951)
From one of the reviews:
"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."--Eric Hoffer, The true BelieverNone of the terrorists of September 11 were destitute. Some even had wives and children. Nevertheless, they committed suicide for their cause. Anyone wanting to understand this horrible irony would do well to read Eric Hoffer's 1951 classic, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) was a self-educated US author and philosopher who was a migratory worker and longshoreman until 1967. He achieved immediate acclaim with his first book, The true Believer.
According to Hoffer, the early converts to any mass movement come from the ranks of the "frustrated," that is, "people who..feel that their lives are spoiled or wasted." The true believers' "Faith in [their] holy cause is to a considerable extent a subsitute for [their] lost faith in [themselves]." He says that we are prone to throw ourselves into a mass movement to "supplant and efface the self we want to forget." He then adds, "We cannot be sure that we have something worth living for unless we are ready to die for it."
Both homosexual sex and child molestation are sinful acts. It is OK to be inclined towards WANTING to commit sin, as long as you do not SUBMIT to sin.
RE: One Jewish gay kid even converted to islam.
I can’t even begin to fathom the thought process behind that.
____________________________
Maybe this article will help...
EXCERPT:
Sex in prison is often coerced or worse, but that reality doesn’t explain the consensual practice of homosexual acts involving prisoners who identify strictly as heterosexual. Such inmates often pursue sexual relationships with willing feminine homosexual prisoners. In other instances, self-described straight inmates might coerce same-sex favors or commit same-sex rape for predatory reasons. But the bottom line is this: homosexual sex is culturally permissible in prison, and it is practiced willingly by many inmates who claim to be straight.
This sort of homosexual culture seems similar to homosexual practices in Afghanistan where “Pashtun men interpret the Islamic prohibition on homosexuality to mean they cannot ‘love’ another man — but that doesn’t mean they can’t use men for sexual gratification.” According to an unclassified U.S. military study, “Pashtun men commonly have sex with other men, admire other men physically, have sexual relationships with boys and shun women both socially and sexually — yet they completely reject the label of homosexual.”
In America, I think the Pashtun culture is defined by the phrase on the down low, not to be confused with the word gay. But like Hilary Clinton once said, “What difference at this point does it make?” Words now mean whatever liberals say they mean.
New "recruits." This is a direct result of exposure to the poisonous culture.
Since you are responding to an empty post, would you clarify your statement? Are you saying it is not God's will that a sodomite live celibate unless married to the opposite gender, and that sexual relations otherwise would be sin?
“It’s starting to feel like 50% of the country is gay!”
As a witty woman once asked: How big was that closet anyway?
The choice is eternal life with God upon choosing a life doing God’s will or ignoring God’s will and face eternal life with Satan.
We choose not to eat the apple that God told Adam not to eat.
God didn’t promise an easy life on earth as we are blessed with many freedoms and opportunities while others face persecution and death for their faith.
Such a general diagnosis can be used to dis everything from the Tea Party to Christianity, rather than having begun with esteem of proven principles, precepts and probity, and thus finding fellowship with leaders and others of like mind and heart, and in principled dissent from those who distorted them.
Courage and Encourage [spiritual support for persons w/ same-sex attraction who are striving...
Bingo.
Children seek boundaries and respect those who set them; when there are no boundaries they will forever spiral outward, searching, respecting no one and nothing until finally they provoke someone to take action.
It’s much more humane to take action when they are children than for their discipline to come from a stranger who does not love them, or an enemy who would destroy them.
They are looking for an alpha wolf and all they see are sheep.
Like sodomite pressing upon Lot in trying for force their way into the house to "know" the men, the demonic forces under the devil, who seeks universal worship by proxy in an alternative society, want total domination, with the devil's alternatives displacing what God created.
If you want to see where the atheists and liberal's training is heading, understand what the devil - the selfish originator of the "occupy movement" and "share the wealth" victim-entitlement movement - seeks. A vote for his proxies is a vote for him.
But as seen in the end,
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 11:15)
Think Sodom and Gomorrah. Only ten worthy people were found there as God destroyed the cities.
The end result of the disintegration of the nuclear family as a result of divorce on demand laws, as well as a propaganda campaign that our entertainment and news industries have been engaged in for over 20 years now to normalize such behavior. Not to mention the ‘if it isn’t hurting me, why should I care’ folks who refuse to see that these sorts of things make civilization itself unsustainable, because it goes against some notion that licentious behavior is equivalent to liberty.
“Contrary to everything you’re told in the popular media, Olympic sex and blinding passionate romance are not vital to human happiness.”
So very true. Also true is that even heterosexual expression of sexual intercourse is reserved for marriage. So, even the heterosexual young person is expected to abstain from sex. It only can properly (according to God) be done in the bounds of (proper) heterosexual marriage.
Sex and romance are great, and they can certainly enhance life. But done badly, they can create just as much misery, and on their best day, they're a distraction that may blind us to more important things.
To live for them is to wallow in carnality and neglect those virtues that elevate us above the beast.
Yes.
Consider the Biblical stories of Aninias and Sapphira, the man with his father's wife, and what Jesus said to do when you bring offerings with a grievance in your heart for God's demeanor toward those who confuse Him with Santa Claus.
I lived for sixteen years from puberty kicking in without having sex with another human being, think about it...
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