Being Gay Today: Take 2

Okay, so if you don't know what I mean by 'Take 2', I had recently posted a blog post of a friend that I have whom I interviewed. What was the interview about? Well, he is a homosexual and I wanted to ask him a few questions about his sexuality- questions that I had and also that I thought the rest of the populations asks themselves sometimes. The interesting fact about this situation is that my friend and I both consider ourselves Christians, or followers of Jesus. This might come as a surprise to many people, that he is a Christian.

So that first piece, "Being Gay Today", was just simply an interview of questions that I had made concerning the way he viewed his sexuality and how that related to his relationship with Jesus. 

I want to first of all say that some people took the first post as a motivator for homosexuality or that I promoted it and saw it as okay or good. That was not my intention at all. My intention with this article was just to simply state that God/Jesus/Holy Spirit loves us as we are right now. My friend is someone who struggles with the sin of homosexuality just as many of us struggle with any sin- big or small as it may seem. 

I can't mention his name because he has entrusted me with confidence, but I will say that he does his best to control his desires of the flesh just as we all do with our struggles. I myself have sin in my life that I wish did not belong or that I didn't have to deal with. Maybe you also have something in your life that controls you and you can't seem to get rid of, as hard as you try. 

So it's the same way with my friend, he recognizes his sin and knows it's sin but what I look up to him the most is that he does not lavish himself in the desire of his sin. Did you get that? He knows his homosexuality is a sin and he has the desires just like any of us but he is able to control his fleshly desires from actually committing any action or sin. I don't know if you get what I'm trying to say here, but I know personally that I am weak and that I tend to give in to temptation very easily and without putting up a fight for the the most part. So in a way he does better than me at this whole dead-to-sin thing that all of us 'Christians' should be. If you don't know already, we should all be dead to sin thanks to Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. His death brought us back to life and into a new life. He provides us with abounding grace; where there is sin, there is grace. 

What I'm trying to get at is that although my friend knows his homosexuality is a sin- just like any other sin- he doesn't act upon it. I think that's one thing I might not have mentioned more in detail in the last post and I want to clear up here. He does not practice his homosexuality. I'm sure the man has thoughts and desires just as any other human being struggling with any other sin. But the fact that he can hold himself from acting on it, that's true self-control. That's something that I lack. But thanks be to God and his undeserving grace and the fact that I finally see his grace as not a "get to sin for free" card but as a reason to love Him and be thankful for what He has done. Self-control is now something that I see as possible in my life with the things I struggle with the most. 

Listen guys, I am not promoting homosexuality because I know it is a sin. What I am promoting is love towards my friend because Jesus loves me even through the ugly and dark places in my life. God does not hold back on his love for any of his children and I'm not here to judge him or anyone else on their homosexuality. There's a difference between sinning purposely without remorse and sinning with repentance and a sincere heart for forgiveness. And I don't know my friend's life personally in detail but what I do know is that he recognizes his sinful nature and he is not letting it control him and that's something that we should all learn to do. Or ask God to let us see His unfailing love and grace for what it truly is and hopefully we will be able to 'sin no more' (we will always sin as long as we are on this Earth). Our desire will no longer be to fall into sin, but to yearn and desire a relationship with God, our Creator, and to find that joy and peace that only He can provide. 

We focus so much on the outside and physical appearance because that's what our eyes see. God sees the heart of man. He knows what we think and how we feel. He knows the desires of our hearts and the motives behind what we do. I know we aren't God but we are as Christians an example of what and how He is. Jesus was the greatest example of how we should be in this world and I know I'm not even as close as I'd like to be but my desire is to be more like Him. And that means loving others as Jesus loves us.