My Sexuality... Inner Turmoil and Confusion

First off, I want to clarify that all these things are my personal opinions. Everyone has different opinions, and different interpretation of scriptures, but to say any one interpretation is right and all others are wrong is prideful, and our Lord detest a prideful spirit.

• I do not know of anyplace in the bible where God tells us to not merry unbelievers. Perhaps you should check out Hosea. God spoke to Hosea and told him to take himself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness. Now I don't believe God would say it's okay to allow this man to do something and tell us that it's not okay for us to do that same thing. This would be showing favoritism, and our Lord does not do such a thing. I understand the circumstances your going through are different then the account of Hosea. I believe Hosea's marriage was a representation of God and us(Hosea 3:1). No matter how many times we screw up God will always take us back, He will always forgive us, and He will always be faithful to us. We must be the same to our wives. No matter what they do or believe we must love them as God loves us. Does God not love non-believers? Of course He does, thats why He wants them to come to Him, and accept Him as Lord. He's sad because of their decisions, but that doesn't change the fact He loves them.
  I believe the best thing you can be is a good ambassador of God. By doing this you could show her the love of God and win her trust, respect, and perhaps be used by God to influence her to accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior.
  If you leave her for being a non-believer then she will view Christians as being judgmental, and she would have a harder time coming to accept Christ later on down the road.
  
  
• I do not believe being attracted to another man is a sin. We were designed to Honor, and Worship God through all His creations. Satin takes a truth and twist it around to deceive us. So when we look at another man, woman, animal, or even a furry we should Glorify God through these things. Praise Him and give Him Thanks for creating someone with such an amazing artistic ability to draw these furry's. Thank Him for blessing you with such amazing artwork for you to admire. If it's a man then we should thank Him for creating such handsome man. Break it down and start glorifying Yahweh for the hair, complexion, eyes, muscles, and voice. We were designed to worship, theres absolutely nothing wrong with it.
  Now what satin does is He takes Gods creations and ask us what we want to do with it. With us being dumber then sheep we obviously overlook the thing we were designed for and center the creation around satisfying our own carnal desires. It's not a sin to glorify God with His creations, but it is a sin to defile his sacred temple with His creations. So basically we simply must not act on these desires, and direct our thoughts away from thinking sexually and transform that thought into an act of worship.
  
  
• There is no unforgivable sin except blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. So saying a homosexual is going to Hell because of His/Her actions seems to me to be judgemental. We do not make those calls. Romans 14:4 says "Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls." Then down in verse 10 it says "You then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand on Gods judgement seat." So when we say someone is going to hell for what they are doing your doing 2 things.
  1. Your trying to take over Gods seat of judgement. It's not our call to say where someone is going to go. That decision belongs to Jesus.
  2. Your discrediting the work Jesus did on the cross. Jesus died on the cross to forgive all sins. Not just some sins, and not others, and not just a certain amount of sin. To say that Jesus' death on the cross washes away the sin of murder, and not homosexuality is just crazy.
  
  
• As for what you said about masturbating.
  You stated you don't watch pornography. I believe thats a great start. Thats currently where I'm at right now. I don't watch it though because every time you watch a pornographic video your actually supporting those immoral organizations financially whether or not you personally are paying for it. There are sights that get money for each click you make. By supporting these sites you in turn are supporting what they are doing. You may be supporting things you may not even be aware of such as child, and women sex slavery, and prostitution.
  Now is masturbation wrong? I'm not sure. I try to do my best not to conform to society's standards and base my decisions off of God's word. A little about where I'm at.
  I became a Christian about 11 months ago, and I went for over 10 months without masturbating. I just recently starting up again. Now I haven't been watching pornography due to the fact I don't want to support Satin and his wicked schemes. But I have been masturbating non the less. The problem is I myself don't feel convicted about it like you. I'm not married so I don't feel like I'm committing adultery of the heart by fantasizing about girls. I'v tried searching the word, youtube video's, and I have even told a couple of people in an attempt to develop a conviction about this with no success.
  I understand this is a topic that can have multiple opinions on it due to the fact the bible doesn't specifically talk about it. But which is right? I myself don't want to base my decision off of what other men think. I want to base it off the will of God. But what is that will? I'm starting to think if God does not want me doing these things, he would allow His Holy Spirit to develop a conviction on it. But since thats not happening, is He allowing me to relieve this tension in this way so I don't fall into a physical act of sexual sin with another?

I hope these thoughts help you out. I know forming them helped me out as well. Any additional thoughts/and or opinions on what I have said would be greatly appreciated.

~Be @ peace, Be with God~
~Eric a disciple of Christ Jesus~

An update on how my struggle with masturbation has been going....

Well as you know if you read my previous post I have been struggling with the same thing every man struggles with. At least I like to think every man does so I don't feel so different. But then again I guess theres women out there that more then likely struggle with the same thing. Anyways I have been struggling with masturbation and this is what happened....

I have been seeking Gods will on this matter for past couple of weeks. Hoping that the Holy Spirit developed a conviction within me so that I can come to true repentance; if that truly is God's will. Wednesday morning I prayed that God would reveal His will to me. Later that day He spoke to me.

Now first off I must fill you in on a little background to make this account make a little more since and explain the significance of a certain detail.
Just over a year ago in I was living in Ashland Oregon with a girl named Grace, and her daughter Alex. As a form of discipline for Alex when she would not listen to me I would count to three. On the count of three if she wasn't listening I would have her "Hold up the Wall". This is where she would have to stand against the wall for about two minutes, which I imagine would seem like an eternity to a two year old.

Wednesday Afternoon I hoped on the 4:00 commuter rail headed from Beaverton to Wilsonville Oregon to get some court documents from my aunt. On the way back the train broke down in Tigard, where my Mom is currently staying. I felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me to get off so I obeyed. I sent my Mom a text and asked her if she wanted to meet up at Washington Square Mall. She agreed and I started to walk towards the mall. On the way there I stopped into a Macy's Furniture store to use the restroom. The mall is located located direct behind the Macy's and I saw a sign past the bathroom in the back of the store that said "Exit". So after I used the restroom I decided to exit out the back door as a shortcut to the mall. I walked out the door labled "Exit" and started down the staircase. I reached the bottom of the staircase and came to two doubled doors. But on the doors it said "Emergency Exit Only Alarm will Sound"! So I headed back up the stairwell to the door I came out of, and it was locked! I looked Directly up above the door and there was a sticker that said "1 hour wall". I knew that was God speaking to me. I sent my Mom a text and explained to her that I was trapped in a stairwell. With only having text on my phone due to not paying that bill it ended up taking one hour for my mom to find the stairwell and free me. I was in there "Holding up the Wall" for one hour! I knew this was God discipling me for masturbating.

I got so caught up in searching the word for God's answer to this I neglected the fact that since Jesus died on the cross, that Vail has been torn, and now God is truly Emmanuel;the God who's with us. Since He is with us He can speak to us in other ways besides the Bible. Just because the Bible doesn't directly tell us we shouldn't touch that doesn't mean God isn't telling us we shouldn't. We must always be conscious about the fact that God can be speaking to us as we go through out our day, not just in our personal devotion time.

I hope this helps out others out there struggling with this deception Satin is using against the believers of Christ Jesus. I will bepraying God reveals His will to you on this matter. When He does, don't forget to praiseHim for caring enough about you to talk to you directly. Things like this really shows me that GOD IS WITH ME AND LOVES ME!

P.S. The names in this Post have been changed to conceal the identities of the People Involved.

~Peace be to all with Love and Grace~
~Eric a disciple of Christ Jesus~