One More Story from Witnessing Team in NYC

From Suzi:

Hi friends,

I wanted to share my conversation with Darrel on Sunday. He came to the table asking if we had any info on homosexuality. I told him I could share what God's Word has to say. He agreed, so I picked up a Bible and began read to him from Leviticus 18:22, Genesis 19, Judges 19:22,23 Romans 1: 26,27 I Corinthians 6: 9-11,18 II Peter 2:6, Jude vs 7, Revelation 21:15. I explained that sexual sin includes fornication, adultery, and homosexuality and anything outside the union between a man and woman in marriage. He had no idea that God's Word was so clear on this issue. He asked me to write down the verses and he took the Bible with him.

I share this because our culture minimizes sin and in many cases the church has followed suit or is often silent. Many believe it is unloving to judge but the most loving thing we can do is declare the full counsel of God without compromise and allow the Holy Spirit to bring conviction and change.

I was reading recently from an emergent leader who seems to think that the church needs another 5 years or so to come to a conclusion on this matter. It makes you wonder how he interprets the words, vile passions, against nature, abomination, detestable etc.

God is not schizophrenic. He means what He says and says what He means. In the same way that He judges Sodom, His righteous judgment will be upon all that discount His truth and embrace iniquity. II Peter 2:6. We will all stand before God and give an account.

The good news is that our Lord is rich in mercy and willing to pardon all who come to Him in repentance. For such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

There are ministries such as LIFE for those who are in need of help, support, and accountability. I'm including a testimony of one who came out of the lifestyle:

All of my relational, political, and social needs were defined by a worldview that fed my appetites and met my needs, albeit just temporarily. My world was centered around the idea that the unholy trinity of me-myself-and-I was sufficient to provide vision, inspiration, answers ... and even legacy.

I was gay.

I didn't particularly care for Christians 15 years ago. During the 1980s I was an out and proudly gay-identified man watching one friend after another die of AIDS…Being gay was the only way I thought possible of knowing and being known. According to everyone around me — both the condemning and condoning crowds — being "gay" was my only option. I had moved out of the closet only to find myself living in a pigeonhole.

Such a me-centric worldview was stifling my true self, the one that's created to be in relationship with our Creator and His creation.

On my journey to Christ in the early 1990s, a friend of mine asked me, "Randy, do you take a bath so you can take a shower?" I shook my head and laughed at her silly metaphor and said no. She, undaunted and committed to the metaphor, said, "Well the Lord doesn't want you to figure it all out before you come to Him ... just come to Him. Everything else will be sorted out in due time."

It just made sense to me. I asked the Lord into my heart, and I did have one of those experiences where I felt His presence in the room. I knew that my prayer for Him to be my Lord and Savior was honest, and heard. I knew that while I was desperate at that moment to know and be known, for years He had already known me fully ... and loved me anyway.

“It” Changed My Life

A few months after becoming a Christian I prayed for the Lord to reveal why it was that I was actually calling Him Lord. I remember telling Him, "I know it means you are the boss of everything and I am supposed to run everything by You before I do anything but why 'Lord?' I mean, I know there is a House of Lords in England and my landlord, but why do we call You Lord—."

Before I could get the rest of the question out, the Holy Spirit overpowered my thoughts, and I experienced the single most powerful experience I have had in my life aside from salvation.

The Lord brought to mind the first man that I thought I loved. Not my first sexual experience, but the first man that I really thought I loved. His name was Ron. I had given him everything: my mind, my body, my possessions and even my dreams. I loved Ron with as much love as I thought I had. It might not be what you can relate to or understand, but please try to understand that it was very powerful to me, and since God was reminding me of it, He understood how impactful His reminding me of Ron would be.

The Father brought back the memory of Ron and me together as a couple. In my memory we were in an embrace and I saw the Lord standing next to us. We were oblivious to His presence and He was grieving. His grief was so bitter I could see Him shaking with tears as He looked upon us. I was immediately struck with grief that God was so grieved. It's a grief I will never forget.

At that point I felt the Spirit asking me, "Randy ... what is the sin?" The only Scripture I knew was Leviticus 18:22 (that's only because it was on the signs that the Christians held up at pride parades and outside of clubs). I told the Lord that I didn't like that Scripture. But He persisted, "What is the sin?" I thought through the verse again: "When one man lies with another as a woman it is an abomination before the Lord." The word "it" jumped out at me. I sensed the Spirit asking, "What is 'it'?"

I answered, "A gender neutral pronoun?" I was a little surprised that in the middle of this powerful time the Holy Spirit would be giving me an English pop quiz. I felt Him say, "EXACTLY!!!"

Then my world fell apart over one little word. "It" meant that I was not the abomination, Ron was not the abomination. It was the abomination — the act itself was keeping Ron and me looking toward each other and not to God for fulfillment of who we were and what God intended. For the first time in my life I knew that God is aware of every secret and not-so-secret thing I have done. Instead of sending hellfire and brimstone, He sent a grieving Savior to pay the price of my ignorance and sin.

He forgave and redeemed me.

Over the past 15 years I've gone from a seriously liberal gay-identified man arguing with pro-lifers and mean Christians to a seriously conservative Christian-identified man attracted to women, supporting pro-life causes and contending with gay activists. I've also learned to steward my sexuality and not allow it to rule my life.

While I might make light of the changes in my life by boiling them down to a series of contrasting labels, this journey has been and is difficult.

To Know and Love God

I was telling a friend the other day that there have been times in my Christian journey when I wanted to give up and go away. Each time I was dealing with serious issues that did not directly deal with homosexuality, but instead with abuse and trauma from my time before Christ.

In each of these situations, my mind, the world and the Adversary stripped me of every reason but one to want to remain a devoted Christian. At various times it seemed that everything and everyone was aligned against my faith. One thing remained true, though — I know Jesus. When the walls are crashing down all around, He is my rock. I remember the milestones, the long nights of anguish, the grief — but also the amazing epiphanies, the laughter, the joy and the worship.

It isn't enough to know about Him; I fell in love with Him. Who can run away from the One Who, though He often does so in a still small voice, sings of His Love so amazingly? Others might, but I can't. His Spirit has empowered me to persevere, which in turn has transformed my character and gives me hope. Trials still come, of course, but today I walk through those dark times holding the hand of an amazing God rather than fumbling around blind.

I know. That sounds so clichéd, like a cheesy greeting card. What about practical advice on how to actually meet God in those amazing ways?

I could sit here and write about the importance of going to church, worshiping the Lord, developing a disciplined life, seeking out mentors and accountability partners, and exposing yourself to edifying art and entertainment. I could make a list of all the authors and speakers who have been instruments the Lord has used to speak into my life.

While all of that is important, the theme that I keep coming back to in life is that we were created to know and be known. And if we want to know and be known by God and others in way that is true to who He is and what He wants, we have to do so selflessly.

It is selflessness that makes me yearn to know a God who has His own opinion, an opinion that might be contrary to my wishes or desires. It is selflessness that makes me want to defer my agenda and be open to His. It's selflessness that moves me to lift up others in prayer when my soul would rather worry about my own circumstance. It's selflessness that refuses to view men as sexual objects and instead see them as Christ does, and to treasure women for how they uniquely reflect God in a way that neither I nor any man ever will. It's selflessness that drives me to forgive and seek forgiveness.

Copyright © 2007 Randy Thomas.
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