I always believed that there was a God, and deep down I always knew that homosexuality was wrong, but it felt good which surpassed all my emotions and convictions. It was all about gratifying the lusts of the flesh. In 1983 I went to work in a Salon downtown Tacoma. Little did I know after taking the position as their Educational Director that I was walking into a salon owned by Christians. From 1983 to 1988 they loved on me, took me in as part of their family, shared meals and more importantly shared the gospel. They decided to have a bible study. One of the salon owner’s husband was a pastor and he would be teaching the study. It turns out it was on the book Revelation. Need I say more! Now many would think that anyone in their right mind would never invite a non-believer for the first time to a bible study on the book of Revelation. But what I heard and experienced thru it all was the love of the Father for his people. This is when I began to feel conviction about my homosexuality. I am not sure why they call it the Gay lifestyle I found there were more dark moments than there were gay or happy. It was this group of people whom God had set in my path to love and share the Gospel of Truth with me.
Five years later on December 18, 1988. I gave my life to Christ. That is another whole story which I will share later. I have been following Jesus for 32 years. It has not been a perfect walk, I was still carrying emotional baggage, but I am so grateful that at my conversion God gave me His gift of Grace. In the Bible, Jesus says in 2nd Corinthians 9:8, “my grace is sufficient for you.”
Our heart and our motivation is to share how much Jesus loves the gay community. If you identify yourself as gay and because we love you, we must proclaim God’s truth—because the truth will set you free! And what is God’s truth regarding homosexuality? It is a sin? Scripture our only authority, provides the answer. In 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10 Paul, a disciple of Jesus Christ writes, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor the idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Sometimes people will only focus on the middle of this list and say, Gay and lesbians will not inherit the kingdom of God, while conveniently ignoring the other sins. However, if we look at all the sins listed, none of us should inherit the kingdom of God. We all fall short. I am so glad Paul did not stop there. He goes on to say, “And such were some of you (Before you believed). But you were washed (by the atoning sacrifice of Christ), you were sanctified (set apart for God), And made holy) you were justified (declared free of guilt) and in the (Holy) Spirit or the source of the believers knew life and changed behavior.”1 Corinthians 6: 11. Amplified.
What wonderful news! You can be washed, you can be sanctified, you can be justified in the name of Jesus. It is the beginning of a journey to be made into the likeness of Christ. When you surrender, you are handing all your baggage to God and He will sort it out and you will begin your life with a clean slate. We want you to know that if you desire for your life to change that Jesus has a redemptive plan to bring you out of the gay lifestyle. It is important for you to know that my biggest sin was not that I declared myself to be a homosexual or being in a same sex relationship. My biggest sin was my unbelief.
I do not know of any other sin issue where we have merged it with personhood. Our identity has nothing to do with our sexual preference. It has to do with who God created us to be and filling that empty place in our hearts to find completion and healing.
I do not believe in giving false promises. We cannot “pray away the gay.” Prayer and reading the bible are important. However we do these things not so that difficulties will not come—and they will—we do them so we are better equipped to remain faithful to God.
