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GOD IS SOVEREIGN
"Whereas we would like to change, we believe that God is sovereign, and that he has the right to choose, for his own reasons, to allow us to remain attracted to the same sex for the rest of our lives on earth if he wants to. Nevertheless, we choose to resist these attractions, and to strive for greater christlikeness in every aspect of our lives, including our sexuality."
This is one of the points of my statements of belief. It is a whole subject on its own.
The reality is that, although God is obviously, in my mind, not happy with active homosexuality, and the pursuit of a homosexual lifestyle (for a discussion see Joe Dallas' "A strong Delusion" ) the truth is that some people change a lot and some change a little, and some claim that they have not changed at all. Why would this be? Surely it would seem contradictory of Him to say something is not OK, and then to not change us?
Number one, God can do what he wants. But it is true that God is true to his word and that his word is given to us in scripture. We believe that scripture is God-breathed etc. (2 Tim 3:16 "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness...) So let's see what he promises regarding change.
In 2 Cor 12 things look bleak indeed.
7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Now, there is no evidence to suggest that Paul's thorn was homosexuality, although the pro-gay brigade would have liked it to be so. The point here is that, the Lord allowed Paul to struggle with this thing, because it was good for Paul.
Oh Dear! Bad start indeed. Apparently the Lord doesn't always oblige us by being predictable. It seems that sometimes his agenda is a bit different from ours. It seems that he is more interested that we acknowledge him as God than that we have it easy, and are able to explain things in a conveniently predictable way. Bad Form!
Another inconvenient little snippet that is revealed in this bit is that God wants to prove to us that we are weak, but not just to reinforce a mostly bad self-image. Rather, so that we may experience the power of Christ.
This tells us a couple of things. Firstly, that the Lord will let something stick around, if it will make us more submissive to him. You see, he needs to do the work so it will be done properly. He will use whatever he can to wear us down so we will finally reach the point where we acknowledge that he is the only one who can do the necessary.
Secondly, this tells us that we need to see this rather stubborn little thing called an unwanted same-sex attraction as an occasion for the grace of God to be demonstrated.
a) He still loves us even though we exhibit characteristics which do not please him. That is grace.
b) Our desperation in this is an opportunity for him to shower us with love. When we have nowhere else to run to, and we run to him, he doesn't say "what took you so long, stand in the corner until I have worked up a bit of forgiveness here..." Rather he receives us with open arms and wants to show that by loving us. Sound like a contradiction? You betcha!
Then there is the matter of our identity. God made us in his image, right? Man and woman he made us. That is one of my proof-texts for God's plan for a heterosexual world. (Gen 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.") But that is something that has been misshapen, skewed by the fall. We end up confused. We don't know who we are. And what better way for us to find out who we are, than to have the goad of an unwanted same-sex attraction to send us scampering into the Father's arms, there to receive the truth that we are men and women, beloved, sons and daughters, CO-heirs with Christ, and much more? What is more precious? That which one receives already formed, for free, almost, or that which was conferred upon us piece by piece, from the hand of the Master himself? No pain no gain.
I could go on. The bottom line is that we should treasure our struggle. It opens up immense opportunities to get to know God, and ourselves...who we really are. The "bad" news is, it is almost always a struggle, and will probably remain so for the rest of our lives. But our motives become clear to us and God. What are we after him for? Heterosexuality, or relationship?
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