Not Understanding, But Not Questioning

LaBèlla said:

Sometimes there is no root. There are many homosexuals who weren’t molested, abused, or reared in broken homes. There’s no traumatic event that explains their sin.

You’ve come to an important fork in the road. While it’s wise to continue seeking deliverance from this issue, there are many instances where it does not occur. God provides His grace and strength which enable you to weather it. There’s usually a greater reason in these instances and it’s often related to your purpose.

If everyone was immediately delivered from same-sex attractions you’d have no ability to minister to those struggling. You’d be incapable of helping them stand or sharing how God enabled you to do the same.

Perhaps the why isn’t important if your mind is seared with His perspective on the matter. Why is only a factor when we wish to understand sin’s influence. All you need to know is what triggers the desires to help your abstinence. And maybe that’s all He wants you to focus on.

Continue to renew your heart and mind. You’re a bondservant now. Your flesh is His. Holy and sacrosanct. God bless.

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Halbhh said:

It does seem complex at first, because we know we are to love others, and we know the heart is involved in love.

The human heart is complex, and consider: It's both often the source of wrongful impulses but also it's where we love in a good way when brought (over and over) into alignment with Christ. God wants our hearts to be doing good love towards others.
Ezekiel 11:19; Ezekiel 36:26; Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10

It's where we must forgive others from -- to not merely forgive them in our minds, and not only try to pray for them, but further, more; God wants us to forgive fully, from our hearts (!)
Bible Gateway passage: Matthew 18:21-35 - New International Version

Yet, though the heart is so crucial, and needed in our great commandment to love, still it itself is not a guide, not what we follow to go the right way (even for those blessed to be a feeling-type temperament, with much heart/feeling energy):
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure--who can understand it?
Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.

Rather, it's our hearts that are changed (many times, over and over), by His Grace, and brought into alignment with His will:
Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
as we confess and repent and realize with gratitude how much He has forgiven us for, and the amazing help/aid He does for us
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
(in this honest confessing to God, we are admitting we need Him, and He is Lord, and that when we did wrong, we don't hold onto it and follow it (the wrong), but instead we want to follow Him)

There can be something that causes us to stumble too much, too easily, and we are to do what it takes to remove it from our easy access, so that we are not so often tempted. The hyperbole needed to make this clear is shocking at first, but He is saying: do what it takes:
Bible Gateway passage: Matthew 5:29 - English Standard Version
But this means sometimes we may have to give up at times something we valued a lot, even perhaps at times for someone it could be a TV or even something like a smartphone possibly for some, at least until they are more fully changed, for instance. Just to do the necessary to accomplish avoiding the temptation.

But the more crucial, central, primary aid though is that we are getting His help, which He absolutely knew we would need, to walk in the Spirit, and not follow the flesh, and He knowing we would need this powerful help, knowing ahead, He gave us the prayer that would be so essential, crucial for us, totally necessary:

Matthew 6 NIV

And see, this prayer is a daily prayer, where you pray each day for your daily bread (subtle and deep bread), and not to fall into temptation (daily you pray), and to be delivered from evil (daily you pray), knowing this is a prayer totally and perfectly and deeply aligned to God's will, and that you know for certainty that what you ask for in this prayer will be given to you.

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dabro said:

I realized that you are born that way but ppl who do have same sex attractions have the choice to live that way.

To me God may call you into singles ministry if you don’t want a wife. Let You weakness be His strength.

My grace is sufficient, MY POWER IS made Perfect in weakness.

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com7fy8 said:

Hi, Intro God bless you; it is good to see you, this morning. We pray with hope for any person, in God's love > love "hopes all things", we have in 1 Corinthians 13:7. So, no matter what anything is, we have hope for that person. So, it is wise not to claim and feed on your failure. We all fail because we all are not Jesus. Only God is able to change us out of our sin problems and make us more and more strong and stable in His love.

But sin things will keep nagging us and eating us alive, as much as our character stays weak enough to allow this. We need . . . all of us need . . . how God alone is able to truly change our character so we are like Jesus and loving any and all people, like Jesus on the cross has loved us.

"And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma." (Ephesians 5:2)

Jesus so suffered and died on the cross, with hope for any evil person, at all. So, we do well to trust Jesus by having hope for ourselves and for anyone else > including ones who are cruel to us and who have given us bad information.

The need is for character change. Or else, even if you perfectly stop some one sin problem, your deep weakness will still work in some other way to have you giving in to selfish pleasures, arguing and complaining, self-righteously looking down on someone else, or guilt-tripping yourself about something else, anger, and various ways of suffering emotionally about whatever. All these are because of sin in our character. Sin does not act in only some one way. But it can fool you into thinking it is some one very bad thing which you can't get rid of. This is part of the deceit of sin.

God's peace is almighty to keep our hearts and minds > Philippians 4:6-7.

But things of sin are dominating, controlling, nagging, won't take no for an answer; because this is how Satan is stupid and stubborn and cruel and uncaring (so yes it is important to care, or else you are giving in to how sin can have you uncaring and frustrated and fooled). Unforgiveness, by the way, is also like this; so every one of us has had sin trouble like you, though in maybe other ways. Boredom and loneliness are cruel and degrading and nagging and dominating for our attention away from God and loving.

But God is almighty; so His peace is almighty against any and all things which are cruel and stupid and stubborn. Satan is cruel and stupid and stubborn, and so are things of his spirit.

"Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." (James 4:7)

"Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." (James 5:16)

So . . . with mutual confession with mutual prayer we can be "healed" of what in our character makes us able to sin and then suffer, and we can be "healed" together with God in His love, instead. This is what God does, and God does include us in ministering this. So, this is how important every child of God is. Every one of us, by mutual confessing and mutual healing prayer, can minister for us to be "healed" of our sin problems, plus "healed" more and more together with God in His love, instead.

"rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." (1 Peter 3:4)

From this, Intro, I see how God's love is gentle and quiet. God is gentle and quiet. So, if we let unquiet nagging distracting thinking and stinking keep us not quiet, this is why we are not intimately and sensitively sharing with God. I mean quiet in His love, not the stewing and negative quiet of boredom and loneliness and confusion and disappointment. Only God is able to change us to this.

So, if your focus is mainly on if you can have romance with some human . . . your attention is elsewhere. And often enough ones want someone mainly because the person is beautiful or handsome > their so-called love is mainly or only about appearance. And I call this "beauty discrimination". I mean if it's mainly what it is about > God does give us "richly all things to enjoy," we have in 1 Timothy 6:17. So, we may enjoy things of God's creation > but this means appreciating "all things", not merely some object of lust. And our Apostle Paul says, "I will not be brought under the power of any," in 1 Corinthians 6:12. So, what is wrong in many sin problems is how we are under the power of things and people and circumstances, instead of first submitting to God in His peace (Colossians 3:15). So, you are not the only one who can be under the power of things like pleasure and what someone looks like and how someone tones his or her voice. And, by the way, how about food abuse? This can be yet another way to be under the power of something which does not love us.

So, a main thing about any sin problem is how certain people and things are getting too much attention. So, you are not the only one with sin problems, are you, then? But ones try to make certain problems somehow so different, so they can point at those people who are not like themselves > or do not seem to be like themselves, maybe I need to say, here. Jesus died one death for all sins; Jesus did not have to die in some different and special way for certain people. He died once, He did it right the first time, for all.

But sin will isolate you. Satan is the one who will devour us with unforgiveness and lusts and anger and frustration and boredom and loneliness eating us alive from inside of us. So, do not be fooled by how any sin problem can make you feel so different than anyone else > sin isolates, then makes us feel like no one can help us, we are too or so different. This is what a predator does, in order to kill and eat its prey.

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." (1 Peter 5:8)

So, if what you have tried has not worked, it can be that what you have done does not work. But I would say there are things to keep doing. Keep being honest with yourself, keep being encouraged while caring also about others with sin problems, have compassion for yourself and for ones who maybe have been telling you what is not God's word, forgive ones who discriminate against you, be their example of how to love. God uses example; keep praying and trusting God who alone is able to really change any of us.

There are people who don't think you can really change, because they have not been able to change out of their sin problems and they suppose that since they fail there can be no way that you can succeed with God; because they think you have a worse problem, and so you can't change if they can't!! This is what worldly people do. Worldly people can draw lines, saying who can change and who can't. They claim certain problems are medical psychiatric troubles while others are genetic . . . all a trick to say there is no hope for us to get rid of our sin problems.

But in case you know something . . . anything . . . is a sin trouble, God is committed to correcting us to become and love like Jesus. Hebrews 12:4-14 guarantees this correction to every child of God.

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Daniel9v9 said:

Make no mistake, there absolutely is a root to all sin. We shouldn't think of sin as completely individual isolated crimes, or God's Law a mere list of arbitrary rules. All sin is, in essence, the same, viz. rebellion and rejection of God. Every time we sin, and we continuously do - in thoughts, words, and deeds, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone - we are rejecting God as true God and instead wickedly crown ourselves our own "lord". This is what makes sin so severe an offence, and worthy of a most severe but just punishment - death and separation from God.

We should be a little careful about isolating homosexuality, for it is only one kind of sexual immorality. God's Law testifies that any kind of sexual act outside of a marriage between one man and one woman is sin. There are several reasons for this, but two major reasons I would highlight are:

1. Homosexuality and any kind of sexual immorality are against God's created order. God is good; His nature, Word and design are good. In the beginning, God instituted family. Think about this for a second. Family is rightly the centre of civilisation - not any other institution or government. It's quite profound if you consider the implications of it. Then God commanded us to multiply. This is only possible through one man and one woman. So when we commit sexual sins, we reject God's design for the human body, we sin against our own bodies and our neighbour, we are rejecting the one major institution created by God for governing the earth. The family was meant to serve as God's own hand on the earth, as faithful stewards of His good creation. We could perhaps even go as far as saying that we sin against our children who we would deny existence. This was certainly true of Onan in Genesis 38, who didn't fulfil his duties. (Israel were to bring forth Jesus, which Onan would have no part in, which made this sin somewhat different from our situation, as Christ is already born)

2. As important and loaded the first reason is, I think this second reason, though often neglected, not considered, and right out dismissed, is perhaps even more important. Marriage is not simply a union between a man and a woman. It's a holy symbol of Christ and His Bride, the Church. When we defile this symbol, I would go as far as to say that it's contempt for the Gospel. This reason is deeply theological and not obvious from nature, but comes from God's own revelation through His Son Jesus Christ. Paul touches on this in Ephesians 5:22-33, where he says about marriage: "This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church."

So in summary, sexual immorality is rebellion and rejection of God, because we rebel and reject His design in creation, which includes our bodies, and also a rejection of the person and works of Jesus Christ - His saving of His Bride - the Gospel.

So when we see sexual immorality punishable by death in the OT, this should serve as a strong indicator of how evil it is before God. At the same time, we must also remember God's grace through His Son, who paid for all our sins in full by His own blood. So even if we may struggle with lust, there is still great hope in Christ!

Blessings +

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Redwingfan9 said:

There are Christians out there who struggle with all sorts of sin, including the sin of homosexuality. I think there are some fairly obvious reasons why homosexual acts are sin, beginning with the fact that it violates God's creation ordinance. But the reality is that even if believers don't fully understand why a sin is called sin by God, the fact that a believer is willing to submit to God's word on the matter is evidence of a regenerated heart.

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Kris Jordan said:

Hi Introverted1293,

Thank you for being so transparent and honest with where you're at in your struggles.

I think if you don't understand what the root of your sin is, you will have a harder time overcoming it. But the bottom line to all sin is this: Sin is "sin" because it all falls short (misses the mark or target) of God's perfect, holy standard of righteousness. So in the case of homosexuality, the Bible teaches that homosexuality is sinful, either as an act or a lifestyle, because it goes against God’s original plan, design and created order. Throughout Scripture, there is not one instance of God approving or even condoning a sexual act between two people of the same gender, or blessing a marriage between two people of the same gender. The only marital union God ever established and ordained was that which exists between one man and one woman, and the only sexual act He approves of and declares as blessed is that which takes place between a husband and his wife.

All of us are born sinful by nature, therefore we do what comes naturally to our flesh, which is to sin. It's our default mode of operation. And because of our sinful natures, some of us have a greater vulnerability or susceptibility toward the sin of homosexuality while others of us have tendencies to sin in other areas like alcoholism, lying, stealing, cheating, pride, etc. And like you said, those who practice sin as a lifestyle (whether we're heterosexual or homosexual), will perish and suffer the eternal consequences of our sin.

However, the good news is: When we come to the place where we recognize we are sinners before God, and when we understand the penalty for our sin (separation from God for eternity in hell), and when we understand Jesus died for our sins and paid our penalty in full so that we could be forgiven and saved from our sin and its eternal penalties -- we can be saved and forgiven in full if we confess our sins and repent (by turning away from pursuing sin and turning to Jesus) and believe Him by faith for what He did for us! And when we do that, God makes us a new creation, He sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts to live and help us overcome sin, He gives us a new godly nature that desires to please Him, and He begins renewing our minds as we read and meditate on His Word, just to name a few.

So have you trusted Jesus for your salvation?

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paul1149 said:

You're absolutely not wrong to have this as a bottom-line mentality. Proverbs tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But notice it doesn't say it's the summation of God's wisdom. That, I would venture to say, is His unfathomable love.

I would say to continue walking in the fear of the Lord. If it keeps you from sinning, that's a good and necessary thing. But also "seek peace and pursue it". God has so much more for you than the mere avoidance of sin. To each of the churches in Revelation He promises rewards for the overcomers.

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Kris Jordan said:

That’s awesome that you’ve trusted Christ for your salvation. How long has it been since you gave your life to Jesus?

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