Homosexuality. A Sin?

I walked out of my gay life in 1998. 23 years later it hasn’t been the easiest of faith walks. It has been a life lived according to scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit. I often get questions such as the ones below. I share the wisdom gleaned from a life surrendered to God, and wisdom from the word of God.

“Do you feel convicted that homosexuality is a sin? My brother is gay and turned away from faith because church ostracized him when he came out. I know it’s the foundation of your ministry but it’s one topic that I don’t understand with different opinions then most so wondering based on your own convictions or is it what people have told you.”

My story: I was raised in the Assembly of God church and learned scripture from an early age pertaining to God's design for human sexuality. At the age of 6 I was sexually abused by my brother, my mom tried to commit suicide and my best friend was killed when a car struck him during Halloween trick or treating. My early years were really traumatic, and I learned that the God people knew must hate me, because of all I had been through. When the abuse happened, my brother also introduced me to pornography at the age of 6. That would be a struggle for the rest of my life. God called me into the ministry at the age of 9, I was saved and filled with the Holy Spirit at the age of 10. My mom was bi-polar, and she kept me close.  I learned terrible ways of coping with life through the eyes and perspective of a crazy person.  My brother was molested at the age of 13.  He was a behavioral menace for the rest of my life at home.  Dad saw that I was a kid who did the right thing and could take care of myself and that my brother needed constant supervision, so at an early age my dad disappeared from my life.  The result of not having a dad who was present and having a mom who wouldn’t let me away from her side, ensured a couple of things.  I didn’t have a male, masculine influence in my life.  I also learned how to approach the world through the eyes and opinions of a woman.  I was cheated out of true masculinity and subjected to daily, consistent femininity.  At an early age I began to experience what I call Same Sex Attraction.  It didn’t mean that I was gay.  It meant that the craziness of my life had set me on a path of emotional and sexual brokenness.  

I misinterpreted a lot of what happened to me.  When a child has unmet emotional needs and they hit puberty, those needs become sexualized.  I was cheated out of the affirmation, approval, love and connectedness of a father.  So when I hit puberty all those longings for a man to hold, hug me, love me became sexualized into my gay life.  When I would look at what my core needs were deep inside.  I wasn’t born sexually attracted to men, but I lived an entire early existence being cheated out of meaningful, powerfully life shaping interactions with men.  

I lived in the gay life for 10 years.  I dated and was out and proud, but somewhere deep inside was the draw of the Holy Spirit back to living a biblical, sexual ethic.  I knew the scriptures that stated that homosexuality was a sin.  I had actually lived out some of them and I knew in my heart of hearts that living a gay life full out was sinful.  But I still couldn’t shake the fact that I thought I was born gay.  I had prayed over and over again to be freed or healed or cured of homosexuality.  God never answered me and Christians weren’t kind.  My father and mother never rejected me, but they also never truly accepted my homosexuality.  And although it pissed me off to no end, I look back now and am so thankful that they never said gay was okay, but instead stood on the tenets of the bible.  

I always had a relationship with Jesus.  God always spoke to me, even as I was on the run from all things Christian.  The conviction of the Holy Spirit was consistent and loving though.  It wasn’t the church or scriptures that initially told me that homosexuality was wrong.  It was my heart, my soul, my mind and every fiber of my being.  The church would only preach that homosexuality was an abomination back then.  So I stayed away from Chrisitians and churches altogether.  At one point I even called myself a gay Christian, because I knew I was a Christian, but I didn’t know how to reconcile my sexuality and my Christianity.  

Nearing the 10 year mark of my gay life, I was hitting rock bottom in so many ways.  My father kept telling me I could come home and live.  I wasn’t ready to give up, but I knew I needed to change my life.  The gay world had wreaked havoc on every aspect of my life.  All I had ever wanted to do was work for Sea World and train Shamu.  This wasn’t going to happen unless I surrendered my life to God.  And I also knew that would need to surrender my sexuality.  So many gay people play the victim when it comes to church and Christians.  They share just enough of their lives to win you over, but they would never tell of you of the secret struggles they deal with inside.  If they did, you would see that they weren’t as convinced that homosexuality isn’t a sin as they portray.  I had to get to the place of admitting that for ten years I had lived a life of disobedience and sexual sin in defiance of God’s word. 

I didn’t know how I was going to get rid of homosexuality in my life.  I didn’t know how I was going to be a Christian or even be gay and Christian.  I didn’t know what to do, but I did know what God’s word said and that I couldn’t do it on my own.  There was a moment of reckoning where I had to ask myself: “Am I going to live a life in response to the deceptive desires of homosexuality or live a life in response to the truth of the word of God?”  I knew the answer.  And I also knew the method.  

Rather than to try and fix my broken sexuality by myself, I needed to surrender control of my whole life to God.  I needed to surrender my life, my will and my sexuality to Jesus.  Jesus surrendered His life, His sexuality and His will to the Father before I ever existed so that I could lean on Him in my time of need.  

I had to take one step at a time.  I didn’t leave homosexuality behind by waking up daily and repeating “I am not going to be gay today.”  Regardless of your sexuality or type of sin, the goal is Jesus, not white knuckling it to perfection.  God was telling me through His word: Be Holy for I am Holy.  He was saying, if I am for you, who can be against you?  I walked away from homosexuality by focusing on Jesus Christ’s example in the scriptures.  I started in the book of Matthew and learned who Jesus was.  More importantly who I could be, because of His sacrifice.  Every day I put myself in the presence of God, much the same way I put myself in the presence of pornography or masturbation, or bars, or drinking or any of the other aspects of my gay life I was living.  My whole life was influenced by all things LGBT, because the church hadn’t seemed like a safe place and I needed a place to belong.  Now, however, the Lord was directing my steps and leading my path.  I was changing my direction, because the gay life had left me rotted and cored.  I was heading in the direction of the one man that would love me and respect me as none before had ever done.  

There are several scriptures that talk about homosexuality and other sexual sins in the bible.  Men, through satanic influence, are the ones who have separated out homosexuality from the other sexual sins in the bible.  There is only one sexual relationship designed and approved by God in His word.  That is the union of man and woman.  Stating that is not a form of homophobia, it is simply a statement of biblical fact.  Men have rewritten scripture for years in order to justify sinful, sexual behavior.  

Here are two good places to start scripturally regarding sex and sexuality as ordained by Heavenly God.  

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived.  Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you.  But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

This scripture outlines what unrighteous people do, but then shows that God is the redeemers of all types of sin and sexual sin.  “And such were some of you.  But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”  It was not my power that led me out of homosexuality.  It was the power of the Spirit of God at work in my life.  God illuminated my sin and sent Jesus as a way out of my sinful, sexual life.  But until I chose to believe the truth of the word of God when it identified my homosexual life as sin, I was not be able to gain freedom from it. 

Matthew 15:18-19 18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 

Fornications include any sexual relationship outside of the realm of sex between a man and a woman.

I spent a long time in the gay world, around broken men like myself who were far from God.  There is a level of brokenness and immaturity that stifles maturation and spiritual growth.  Men who were motivated by sexual desire rather than the leading and direction of Holy God and His word.  I needed to renew my mind so that my life could be transformed.  

Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 

Romans 1:21-32  21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32 who,  knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

I have experienced several aspects of the following verses.  I can attest to the experience in scripture that men will burn in their lust for one another.  There was a sexual drive and hunger that could never be satiated.  I can testify that many men, gay and ex-gay, have shared that they have experienced the same draw throughout their lives.  

I hope that helps bring some clarity to your thoughts.  At the end of the day, it wasn’t the negative influence of Christians that led me away from homosexuality; it was the gentle and steady conviction of the Holy Spirit that I wasn’t meant to live as a gay man.  I was called to live Holy and surrendered to Jesus Christ in every aspect of my being.