Every week, Table for One blogs generate questions. Recently, we’ve received questions about our stance on same-sex attraction and how or why God would even allow someone to have that struggle in our lives.
Our immediate response is to say that homosexuals are not alone in their battle with sin.
Every person ever born has a sin nature and is prone to sinful desires. Each one of us could ask God the same question: why was I born with sinful desires in my heart? Why do I have the desire to take someone’s life? To lie? To commit adultery? To gossip? To be a glutton? To be prideful?
To sum it up: “We are with you.”
We are all sinners. Same-sex attraction is not “special”, it does not warrant its own category of sinfulness or depravity. All fall short of the Glory of God. Being attracted to the same sex does not mean you have to act on it: just as gluttons have to choose not to eat and gossipers choose not to speak. It’s a choice to engage in sin, regardless of the debate about the source of those feelings.
No sin is so big that it cannot be overcome. You can have victory over this struggle like other struggles we all have. The point to remember is that victory does not necessarily mean having a heterosexual marriage and kids.
Victory is first and foremost an abiding relationship with Christ!
Christ died to release us from the bondage of our sinful desires. Our responsibility towards those who lead a gay lifestyle is not to try to “change” them, but to pray for them and share the gospel. Those who experience God’s grace and turn to Christ as Lord and Savior are released from the condemnation of sin. This does not mean the desires will cease to exist. We all know from life experience that the desire to sin never leaves us; but neither does Jesus Christ–He will never leave you or forsake you.
So we cling to Him daily and make HIM (not our desires or our lifestyle) the first priority in our lives. As we do this, He will stand beside us in the struggle and give us the power to live the life we were called to experience.
God loves strugglers.
