I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. I believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven and is the only way to the Father. I believe Christ came to destroy the works of Satan; and that he was born through the virgin Mary. I believe for the sin of mankind and that on the third he rose from the dead, so that we can have eternal life if we put our trust in him. I believe that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. I believe that Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth.
That's good, but your opening question belies that honestly believe all of that in your heart. Paul says that when we are born again that we are given the Holy Spirit as a deposit who is our confirmation that we will receive the promise of God's salvation on the day of His judgment. John writes that all these things are written that we may know that we have eternal life.
My encouragement to you is that you go to the Lord in prayer and find out why He gave us the sexual union? You see, as I understand God's gift of the sexual union, it is something that He wants us to enjoy in the confines of a marriage. It is basically for procreation, but as a married couple, we can enjoy it without that being the goal. Outside of that, I don't think that God ever intended sex to be something that we just do with someone else to achieve an [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] or as a way to share intimacy.
Consider that in Judaism, a woman was expected to be a virgin upon marriage. There's likely good reason for that beyond those people who just think that the Jews were just a backwoods bunch of folk. Marriage was always intended to be a life long commitment between two people (a man and a woman) and sex, something that those two people then had the blessing of God to enjoy as they became one flesh. All other uses are just another attempt of man to gratify his own fleshly desires.
And please, before anyone accuses me of being a hypocrite, because it isn't how I was raised or grew up. However, when I was born again a lot of things changed about my worldview. Issues like evolution were generally accepted by me, but now that I know the truth, I have changed my position on it. Similarly, the issue of the sexual union became something very different in my understanding once I was born again. And I am not sinless in this either! I struggle with sexual desires all the time, but just because I struggle with what I know to be the truth, doesn't mean that I don't know and understand the truth.
I'm a wicked man! There are no two ways about that. I'm a sinner! Jesus has told me that the job of the Holy Spirit living within me is to convict me of
both sin and righteousness. So, when I sin, I come under conviction for that. I can't sin without being convicted because that's the job of the Holy Spirit living within me. You sound like you're likely in that place where you have been struggling with sin and are now fighting doubts that the evil one is whispering in your ear that God won't take you! You're a SINNER!!! Friend, God loves you and His Son died for you sin. Both those you have committed in the past and those that you will commit in the future. Yes, our sin should become greatly reduced, but to be absolutely free of sin, I don't think that's possible this side of the eternal life.
John writes that if we continue to sin then we don't know him, yet he writes just prior to that about what we should do when we sin. So, this brings up a question as to whether or not we're understanding what John intended to write to us about continuing to sin.
In 1 John 1:8 he writes: If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
In 2:1 he writes: My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
Then in 3:6 he writes: No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
In 3:9 he writes: No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.
But then again in 5:16 he goes back to telling us that we may see a brother or sister sin: If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death.
Finally in 5:18 he writes: We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them.
Friend, in both a homosexual relationship or a heterosexual relationship, if we use the sexual relation in a way that God didn't intend us to use it for, we're just asking for trouble. In heterosexual relationships we have unwanted pregnancies, disturbed partners because there is no trust or commitment in the relationship. God created the sexual union for man to enjoy within a committed relationship between a man and a woman. Everything else, while it certainly gratifies our fleshly desires, as most sin does, after all God's word tells us that sin offers pleasures for a season, is not using the sexual union as God intended it to be used. That's my understanding. But I'm a sinner and you're a sinner and we struggle against forces and principalities that our quite honestly outside of our complete understanding. There is one among us whose job it is to cast doubt. Don't let him do that to you.
You do what Jesus told you to do. You love God with all that is you. Your heart, your soul, your mind and strength. Then after doing that, love others as you would love yourself.
God bless you,
In Christ, ted
