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Posts Tagged ‘repentance’

Hope in the Struggle with Same-Sex Attraction

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Sexy or holy?, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 21, 2016| 1 Comment »

student reading Bible

“I never chose to be gay; I was born this way.”

“I’ve felt same-sex attraction since I was very young.”

“Who would choose to be gay?  If it were actually a choice, I would have chosen to be heterosexual.  My life would be so much easier.”

“I believe God created people to be gay; therefore, how can it be a sin?”

The statements above were made by Scott Barefoot during the ten years that he openly practiced the behavior of homosexuality.  The gay community with whom he surrounded himself reinforced his beliefs.

Love.  Peace.  Happiness.  When Scott read his Bible or went to church, these were the things he was searching for.  When his definitions of “love” and “happiness” differed from God’s, he moved on.

Scott moved on from the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod* of his childhood during the time he was a practicing homosexual to attend a church where 80 percent of the members identified themselves as gay or lesbian.  The pastor went to great lengths to spin the interpretation of God’s Word and did not address the spiritual danger that threatened to consume Scott.

Do not judge became Scott’s “go to” scripture.  If he needed to tweak God’s Word to justify sexual relationships with other men, he did so.  But something was happening to change Scott’s perspective.

Scott held the prestigious position of Clinical Assistant to the Director of Interventional Cardiology at a large hospital in the Washington, D.C., area.  He immersed himself in the gay “Christian” community,  had plenty of cool guys seeking to date him, and brushed aside guilt in order to celebrate his sexual freedom.  Then Scott learned he was HIV positive.

For a year, Scott was in severe depression.  Slowly, he came face to face with the realization that his “unnatural and unrepentant behavior” had placed him in physical and spiritual danger.  He had wrapped Jesus around his sensual desires and, in so doing, moved farther away from God.  But how could he ever change?  How could he overcome same-sex attraction?

On his own, Scott could not change.  But through the work of the Holy Spirit, Scott acknowledged that he was sinning against God and his own body.  Like King David, Scott felt God’s hand “heavy upon” him and his “strength was dried up” (Ps. 32:3-5).  Scott, the creature, was led to trust the pure Word of his Creator.  At the foot of the Cross, Scott confessed that his behavior was not pleasing to God and, with the shedding of any notion of a sensual identity, he was set free by Christ to continue living as a redeemed child of God.

But redeemed children of God are not promised an easy life.  Jesus says, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).  Scott—like every one of us—is called to resist earthly temptations and persevere in Christ.

Scott did not wake up one magical day with a natural attraction to women.  He may never marry or father children, but he finds peace in celibate singleness that gives him freedom to grow in the Lord.  He can choose to live in a way that honors God and does not tempt others.  He is free to shine light in dark places and help others know that release from sexual captivity is possible.

Like an alcoholic who never returns to a bar, Scott explains, “I am no longer captive to a destructive behavior . . . The Holy Spirit led me to make my exodus from the fantasy land of thinking I could live as a practicing homosexual and still be right with God.”

This is the message that Scott brought to my hometown during the weekend of April 9-10.  His visit was sponsored by the Lighthouse Center of Hope, a pregnancy and family life center.  Why?  Because at the Lighthouse, we see young people struggling with the deception of a sexual identity.  We want male and female to know who they are in Christ and why that matters.  So we invited Scott to speak to teens, parents, and pastors.  At three different locations, Scott shared his story and offered wise and sensitive counsel.

Scott does not stand alone.  In my book, The Failure of Sex Education in the Church: Mistaken Identity, Compromised Purity, I quote another man who turned from his homosexual practice while in study of God’s Word.  Christopher Yuan writes, “My primary identity didn’t have to be defined by my feelings or sexual attractions.  My identity was not ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual,’ or even ‘heterosexual,’ for that matter.  My identity as a child of the living God must be in Jesus Christ alone.”  Christopher continues, “God did not say, Be heterosexual, for I am heterosexual.  God says, ‘Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy’ (1 Peter 1:15-16).”  (Out of a Far Country, p. 187-188)

The opposite of holy is common, referring to things that can be used by anyone.  But to be holy means to be uncommon and useable by God.  Once Scott let go of his proud identity as “gay,” he could begin to see himself as God does.  He is called by name (Is. 43:1)!  He is an heir of God (Ro. 8:17)!  He has come out of darkness and into the light (1 Pt. 2:9) for God’s good purpose.  From the time of Scott’s baptism, the Holy Spirit was faithfully at work in him.  The world and his own sinful nature did not want Scott to change.  But change for this repentant man was possible because of mercy and grace.

Scott told me, “I was, but now I am.”  The Word of the New Testament explains —

Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were some of you.  But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

If you are a Christian struggling with same-sex attraction, Scott has a message of hope for you.  If you are a parent concerned about a son or a daughter, Scott has resources and helpful advice.  Please contact him or visit his ministry, People of Grace.

In Jesus Christ you, too, have mercy and grace.

 

                                                                                                                                              * Scott returned to the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod

Linda Bartlett is the president and co-founder of
The Lighthouse Center of Hope in Iowa Falls, IA.

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Feasting While Children Die

Posted in Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Life issues, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2015| 2 Comments »

Denethor Lord of the Rings

Over lunch and a glass of Merlot, Dr. Deborah Nucatola detailed the harvesting of body parts from partially aborted babies. She explained the “crushing” procedure of the unwanted parts of the baby, including the child’s head, followed by the gentle extraction of valuable organs. She quoted the price per heart, liver, and kidney while swirling wine in a goblet and dining on an elegantly served meal.

You can watch Dr. Nucatola, Abortionist and Senior Director of Medical Services for Planned Parenthood, and listen to her explain the business of abortion in this edited, eight minute video clip. If you can stomach it, you’ll find the three hour video entitled “Planned Parenthood in the Business of Selling Baby Parts FULL FOOTAGE” on YouTube.

My daughter-in-law, Alison, watched the video. Gut wrenched and with heavy heart for the children, she began to pray. But, Alison told me that her prayer was interrupted by an image from Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King. After you have watched Dr. Nucatola casually explain the purposeful killing of children (for a profit), Alison would like you to watch this movie clip.

“Please watch carefully,” says Alison. “Listen to the words of Pippin’s ballad. (You can read the lyrics on the screen.) Ponder the meaning. Then focus on the character Denethor, the greasy man with food dripping down his chin while death is all around.”

Alison asks, “Do you see light and darkness, good and evil?” If you are familiar with J.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King, then you, like Alison, might have wondered, “How dead on the inside does someone have to be to have such a voracious appetite at a time like this? He eats with not a care in the world, yet there is blood on Denethor’s hands.”

Dr. Nucatola, is younger and much more attractive. But, Alison wonders, what about her appetite? What about her soul? How can she so casually detail the slaughter and sale of innocent human life while enjoying her fine feast?

“I pity her,” Alison told me. “What has been stripped away from her heart and mind to leave her in such an icy state of callousness? Is her conscience so dulled or deadened that she can discuss the price of a human child’s body parts and the crushing of that child’s skull in much the same manner as she might discuss the price of furniture or office supplies?”

Tolkien probably never imagined that his work “would be tied to abortion or the profit motivations of the human tissue industry,” Alison said. “But, while I was praying, the comparison between Dr. Nucatola and Denethor came so clearly to my mind that I cannot be silent.”

Alison believes that Jesus forgives women who repent of their abortions. He forgives the repentant boyfriends, husbands, or parents who insisted on abortions. He forgives the doctors who repent of doing abortions. Upon forgiveness, the Lord Jesus wipes the sinner’s slate clean so that he or she is as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). With true repentance and sorrow, the Lord Jesus freely gives His mercy and the gift of salvation to all, no matter the offense (Psalm 86:5).  Then, He says, “Go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:11).

But, she asks, what of those who do not repent? What of those who not only do evil but defend evil? What of those who call themselves Christian but support Planned Parenthood or refuse to acknowledge what happens on the surgical table in a Planned Parenthood facility?

Alison is concerned about the spiritual health and salvation of people that you and I know—people in our families, our congregations, our neighborhoods who continue to insist that abortion is a “woman’s choice.” She wonders: If a person defends Planned Parenthood while forsaking the “little children whom Jesus wants to come to Him” (Matthew 19:14); if a person champions the death of their littlest neighbor—the babe in the womb, then does God turn His face away?

Alison is right to be concerned.  There is a spiritual battle that rages for our very souls. During prayer, Alison was moved to compare the callousness of a Planned Parenthood abortionist with that of Tolkien’s lord of death. The powerful imagery brought to Alison’s mind should leave you and me as gut wrenched and soul sickened as it did her. “There is a burden on my heart,” Alison told me. “This burden causes me to ask a hard question to all who call themselves Christians: Will God forgive any of us—whether we have sinned by defending abortion or by keeping silent—if we have not confessed sorrow and repentance of that sin?”

Alison knows that “choice” is the word used by those who seek self-gratification and lordship of their own lives. But “choice,” she points out, is something we all really do have. We can choose evil… or good. We can choose to serve ourselves and the world… or God. To the Israelites, freed from captivity, Joshua said,

Fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:14-15).

Alison asks, “Will we, the people who proclaim Jesus Christ, ignore Dr. Nucatola, Planned Parenthood and the imagery of Tolkien’s Denethor? Or will we say, ‘No more! My eyes are open! I will speak!  I will speak for my littlest neighbors, the ones Jesus calls by name.”

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Where Government Replaces God Suicide Increases

Posted in Commentaries of others, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Life issues, tagged , , , , , , , on October 11, 2012| 3 Comments »

More Americans now commit suicide than die in car accidents.  “People are despairing in America,” writes Joseph Farah, “more than ever before.”

It would be easy, notes Farah, to blame the suicide epidemic on the economy.  But, that’s not how he sees it.  People may be struggling financially, but they’re not ending their lives because they lack food and shelter or toys and gadgets.

“I believe the trend reflects a deep and growing spiritual emptiness in a culture that is more depraved than ever before,” writes Farah.  “Too many people just don’t find any meaning in life.”

We should all, as Farah advices, “think about it.”  He continues:

We are told from the youngest age in state-run schools that human beings are merely the result of billions of years of evolution from lower life forms and random mutations.  There is no God who loves us and to whom we are accountable.  There are no laws higher than those that government imposes on us – no sin.  No ultimate, objective moral code.  In fact, human beings are a blight on the planet.  It would be better off without us – or at least with a lot fewer of us polluting the air with carbon dioxide and overheating the earth.

. . . Prayer and Bible reading are prohibited, but explicit instruction on how to have promiscuous sex without consequences is mandated.

Abortion is subsidized, while adoption is prohibitively expensive in the unlikely event you can find a child to adopt.

Increasingly, the state is sticking its nose into what we eat, what we say, how we raise our children – even what we believe.

Government is fine with pornography.  But purity and abstinence are discouraged.

In other words, right is wrong, up is down, black is white, left is right.  And we sit here and wonder why people are killing themselves.

When government replaces God in the lives of people, their lives become empty.  They become subjects of the state, rather than citizens endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights – among those being life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

When government becomes the ultimate authority in our lives and practices lawlessness, disregarding routinely the Constitution from which it derives its limited authority, I would suggest to you this is a much bigger cause for despair and powerlessness.

There is a solution to this problem.  But it’s not a top-down answer.  It’s a bottom-up solution.  Americans need to get right with God.

They need to find out what He requires of them, why He created them, and how much He loves them.

They need to have a genuine repentance for having turned away from Him and whored after false gods and pursuits.

If Americans did this, they wouldn’t be taking their own lives in record numbers.

Thank you, Joseph Farah.  It is a privilege to reprint a portion of your column.  May it be used to spark dialogue in families, neighborhoods, schools, places of business, law offices, and congregations.

Joseph Farah is a nationally syndicated columnist.
I excerpted  from his commentary,
“What happens when government replaces God”
which appeared in October 1 edition of The Washington Times

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Homophobic?

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Relationships, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 20, 2011| 1 Comment »

Rev. Albert Mohler told his fellow Southern Baptists at their recent conference that they’ve only been half right about homosexuality.

“We have said to people that homosexuality is just a choice.  Well, it’s clear that it’s more than a choice,” he stated.  “That doesn’t mean it’s any less sinful, but it does mean it’s not something that people can just turn on and turn off.”

Rev. Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says his denomination needs to repent for a “form of homophobia” that has condemned homosexuals instead of embracing them as fellow sinners.

“We have also exhibited a certain form of homophobia of which we must, absolutely must in gospel terms, repent precisely because we believe in all the Scripture teaches about homosexuality, and all that the Scripture teaches about sin,” said Rev. Mohler.

He said the hard truth is, “Only the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ gives a homosexual person any hope of release from homosexuality.  The Gospel is what we stand for — and the Gospel is the only remedy for sin.”

Thank you, Rev. Mohler and Southern Baptists for standing on firm ground.  Some denominations claim there’s no need for release and that God can bless same-sex relationships.  This is not the God who calls Himself “I Am.”   “I Am” says, “I  have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.  Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).  The Creator of  life is not cruel.  He does not make a person to be homosexual and then laugh when their behavior results in despair.  Confusion.  Illness.

We all struggle with sins and their consequences.  May our neighbors urge us away from the cliff of sin even as they reach out to embrace us in Jesus Christ.

(Appreciation to OneNewsNow.com)

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