Yes, there are different ways people understand this. So, I will offer what I have, and you are welcome to trust God to have you find out all that is really right. What is good will have you in God's peace, with more and more freedom from the troubles and torments and destruction and misery of sin.
"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love." (1 John 4:18)
So, fear is anti-love and has
"torment". We were not born choosing to fear and to suffer torment; but fear and its torment are part of the package deal of living in sin.
Therefore, God's word clearly says not to be
"anxious" about anything > Philippians 4:6-7 >
"Be anxious for nothing" (in Philippians 4:6-7). So, if we do not obey this, we are sinning by not obeying how God's grace has us living and loving.
And there are other things we can have in us because of being born in sin; we did not choose to be born in sin, but we were born wrong, in sin; and so humans have started off wrong, with wrong ways and many different wrong preferences.
While humans in sin can have many different wrong ways and preferences, there is a basic > humans in sin have an automatic tendency to seek pleasure and to react very nastily and negatively and more or less violently if they do not get their own way.
And one very popular pleasure is sexual sensation. Because of being born in sin, humans have a tendency to seek the pleasure of sexual sensation, for their own use and purpose, instead of desiring and seeking to reproduce children of God (Malachi 2:14-15) who know how to love.
We see how many children have been brought up not knowing how to love. This can be partly because their parents did much arguing and complaining and controlling their lives for what they want, instead of being examples of how Jesus has us loving any and all people. And this has helped children to grow up confused, developing preferences for how they will seek pleasure, instead of growing up with the desire to reproduce children for God, who know how to love. This is a very selfish orientation which is sin, a problem of the heart and character, not only a genetic or culturally produced preference. But there is culture which can help to promote children to prefer pleasure and develop preferences for how they get it. But the child was born in sin, with one's own nature making him or her able to go along with this evil world's foolishness of being more interested in pleasure, than in seeking God for Himself.
And indeed we did not choose to be born in sin with its character making us able to have many sorts of selfish preferences, and then to deeply suffer about not getting pleasure the way we want it. But just because we did not choose this, this does not mean we are ok, and certainly we do not have to stay this way; because Jesus suffered and died for us so we can be forgiven and reconciled with God and not keep suffering now and after we die.
So > at a more practical level, in everyday life > why do people prefer pleasure? Why is it not obviously and automatically more desirable to seek God who is so good and kind and beautifully wonderful in love which has Heaven's own pleasant rest and caressing and intimacy in genuine love?????
By the way > God's love has better and nicer pleasure than all the physical sensations which humans can get their bodies to experience > it is written >
"At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." (in Psalm 16:11)
"Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
.My lips shall praise You." (Psalm 63:3)
So, why do humans stay so busy with seeking inferior pleasures. And why do people depend on what is not freely given? So often you have to pay for them, or you have to become a slave of some sort to the people you use for getting your pleasure which is inferior. But Jesus gives us
"rest for your souls." (in Matthew 11:28-30)
Yet we see how people of preferences for sexual pleasure do not have rest for their souls. Why? Because they are not with God in His love with almighty power of peace to keep them deeply satisfied in God's love.
And - - because people are in their weakness of sin, they are weak enough to suffer in the destruction and misery of sin, and the horribleness of their emotional suffering makes them desperate to feel something nicer. So, they seek drugs, sexual sensation, the nice feeling of food, and other pleasures which are fairly easy to get. And they use people to get the pleasures they prefer. But in any case, their preference, really, has nothing to do with which food they prefer or which way they get sexual sensations or drug experiences; but the bottom line is they prefer pleasure instead of seeking God for Himself and personally submitting to Him in His peace.
We all in Jesus are
"called in one body" to personally submit to how our Father rules us in His own peace >
"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful." (Colossians 3:15)
This is basic, for every child of God . . . to submit to how our Heavenly Father personally rules each of us in His own peace with His own almighty power to keep us from evil preferences, and keep us from selfishly using other people to get pleasure. Therefore, it is indeed wrong to have a wrong preference. Preferences are of the heart. God wants our hearts to have preference for Him and submitting to Him in His peace, and to love any and all people as ourselves.
So, if any drive or preference takes our attention away from this, it is sin. Because God's word clearly tells us to set and keep our minds on God >
"You will keep him in perfect peace,
.Whose mind is stayed on You,
.Because He trusts in you."
. . . . . . . . . . . (Isaiah 26:3)
You can see from this, how so many people and things are indeed working to keep your attention elsewhere. This is an evil world we are living in, then. And there are many different wrong preferences and ways of getting our attention to what selfish people prefer for getting their many different pleasures. So, if you become wise to how your own preferences have been sin, now you also need to make sure you are wise to however other pleasure preferences also are sin. And have mercy and hope for others who also have been wrong >
"He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness." (Hebrews 5:2)
And as you become honest with God, in your character you will become capable of perceiving and sharing with others who are honest with God. Only in God's love can we be truly honest and see who the others are. So, we are not alone. But sin isolates us with our preferences which can even become our identity, and we can be isolated with the ones we want to use. We can tend to love the ones we use, and become addicted to their charm and personalities, and this makes our addiction even more complicated than just being an interest in getting physical pleasure. Personalities are very complicated; so becoming hooked on another human being is very difficult, if we do not know how to love with God; plus, Jesus says,
"if you love those who love you, what reward have you?" (in Matthew 5:46)
Because of the weakness of sin and its ways of selfish loving, many people can not handle living in a close relationship with someone else, without getting hurt and unforgiving and arguing and accusing and blaming, instead of tenderly caring and compassionately forgiving >
"Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." (Ephesians 4:31-32)
Because they are not strong in God's family way of loving, they can isolate themselves with pleasures and with pets, that they can control, and with only certain people who cooperate with them. But God's family love makes us strong and sensitive so we can share with many people, and not get hurt by ones who do not know how to love, but keep good example in their faces
So, you can see how preferences can be guided and driven by desperation to not feel misery of sin. And you can see how people are desperate > arguing, complaining, screaming, pushing, controlling, depending on their own selves instead of depending on God. And God's word says to depend on Him who cares for us >
"casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you." (1 Peter 5:7)
"Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." (James 4:7)
This is Bible basic for every person > to personally submit to God in order to be truly deeply corrected in our character, so we personally submit to how our God and Father rules each of us with His own peace in our hearts > Colossians 3:15 > and discover how this has us loving as His family in Jesus while we also care for and reach to any and all others who need Jesus.
And you have already experienced, I would say, Info, that shaming and guilt-tripping and the threat of hell have not changed you into a deeply submissive person in God's peace. But, also, just saying we are ok to stay the way we are does not have us personally sharing with God in His own love. We do not need to isolate ourselves with only certain people who say we are ok.
With Jesus, we have . . .
"rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:28-30) . . .
loving any and all people, with hope for any evil person, at all > love
"hopes all things" (in 1 Corinthians 13:7) . . .
hope for others because of how God has proven Himself in us, so we know He can do this in any other person, too . . .
> God bless you with this, more and more
