A potential source if confusion here is the equivocation in the word “homosexual”.
True, one cannot be an active, unrepentant homosexual and be a Christian in good faith. No more than one could be an active, unrepentant slanderer, drunkard, glutton, tax cheat, or arrogant son of a....
But EVERY Christian is a sinner, including all of the above sins and then some, in the sense that each one of have inward tendencies we need to be fighting (like pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth) and the minute we’re not fighting them, we’re falling into them.
So. Sinner? Join the club. Get a new heart. Trust in our our holy, beloved Savior. Be free of sin. It’s such a relief. And be happy!
A salvation that is eternal will inevitably end in a complete victory. That means one can’t adamantly stand on sin; but if one is merely weak and stumbles but longs for sufficient strength, God does not hold that as an insuperable fault.
There’s a common tendency in Christendom to lump everybody who has habitually participated in such acts in the same boat. But this slights the miracle of God’s salvational power.
A long ordeal does not mean a hopeless case either. Sometimes long, drawn out trials are the prelude to a most uncommon blessing.
And one thing I have discovered is, that when I thought I wasn’t sinning... I often was ignorant.
When God showed me a better way to live, then I realize that yes, I was sinning. But that He forgave me for my sin, because it was not adamantly willful, but born of weakness and misunderstanding.
God will grant power to anyone who will, in the end, be willing to use the power to walk away from sin. Which in technical terms takes a lifetime to learn. That’s why we are told that it is appointed once for man to die, and then comes the judgment. We wouldn’t be ready for it before then. Patience is a virtue.
“True, one cannot be an active, unrepentant homosexual and be a Christian in good faith. No more than one could be an active, unrepentant slanderer, drunkard, glutton, tax cheat, or arrogant son of a....”
Exactly. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
There may be some Christians who are tempted to sin in a homosexual fashion. Myself I am tempted in the heterosexual fashion. Fornication and adultery are very, very popular heterosexual sins. So is porn use.
But I don’t go fornicate, adulterize, use my porn and say, hey God loves me like this. ‘Cause he doesn’t. I will not indulge my inclinations to those sins nor will I refuse to call them sins.
Nor will I ever pretend one can live in sin and be a Christian at the same time.
Were that true, what need would we have of a Savior?