I don't know about others, but I was dead in my sins before God saved me! I was wicked, a drunk, and a very self centered person. I was basically abandoned by my parents, when I was 3, and my younger brother was born with a birth defect. I always accepted that they thought he might die of water on the brain, but after cutting his skull open from ear to ear, he didn't have it at all. He either developed it in utero, which is what the doctors told my mom in the 1950s, blaming her for getting sick with the flu in her third month, although she protested she hadn't been sick for one day in her entire pregnancy. He likely had one of 10 gene defects which caused it. At any rate he didn't die, but he had no falling reflex, and he was clumsy. He used to fall, and required stitches after every fall. A lot of attention every day. Add a mother, taking car of a bleeding toddlers is more important than giving some attention to a lonely 4 year old. And later, the abuse got worse!
I don't believe I was abandoned, but certainly I was neglected emotionally. My brother was overprotected, & grew up to be a bitter, angry person. My father wouldn't let him go, my mom berated him for everything. He was spoiled & lazy. I just saw him this week, and since getting out in his own (our mom is in long term care!) he has changed into a kind, caring, normal person. At 65! So he was damaged, too!
When I reached my teens, my parents were so controlling. I ran away from home, for good at 17! I did a lot of bad things. Then a revival started among the hippies where I lived! The power of God was amazing. Many people were called to ministry & the mission field, Then, God miraculously saved me. I changed instantly, by the power of the Holy Spirit! I never had another drop of alcohol-since May 1980! God did that, I had tried many times & failed.
I was joyously saved, but I did have a lot of inner conflicts & depression. As I read through the Bible yearly, God ministered to me! For 30 years! I was very angry! God showed me anger was a sin in my second year as a Christian. In the sin list In Galatians 5:19-21, "fits of anger" was there with drunkenness and sexual immorality are both on that list. In law, a list like that means all the items are equal! My anger, was as bad as sexual immorality, which includes homosexuality. So although Paul starts Roman's 1 with a tirade about how bad homosexuality is, in Galatians, he makes the case that those sins are equal. Just to clear up the poor theology that homosexuality is the biggest sin. In fact, blaspheming God is much worse.
Lots of people saying a bad childhood resulted in them turning to homosexuality. I'm not saying that is wrong. Certainly neglect and abuse hurt me! But the root of sin, is that we are born sinners. If not homosexuality, then drunkedness or idolatry or anger is the result of Genesis 3, the fall! We are not born beautiful and perfectly innocent. Even as babies, before we learn about sin, a baby is still a sinner, by inheritance.
And what is the cure for sin? Jesus, of course! We have a man in our church who seems flamboyantly gay. But he was married to a beautiful woman, who died last year of Rheumatoid Lung Disease, for over 30 years. Joe repented of his sins, avoided temptation and changed his life, with the Holy Spirit. He's a sinner, saved by grace!
I'm glad I wasn't veering in that direction. But I was still a sinner, too! God ONLY saves sinners. Because there is no one righteous, no, not one! (Roman's 3:10) we are saved by grace, and that includes homosexuals, adulterers, prostitutes and every other sexual immorality! Every type of sin!
"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this worldand of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient." Ephesians 2:1-2
"But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved" Eph 2:4-5
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Eph 2:8-10
So, yes, a homosexual can repent and become a Christian, just like the rest of us!!
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