There actually was a time when I first started writing blogs where I actually wrote about homosexuality. The struggle I experienced to understand it, how this related to the Bible and the what God thought about it. I met a young woman online who was a lesbian, got saved and delivered from homosexuality and I got a chance to reach out to her, have a real conversation and she helped me understand some things that were beyond my scope of understanding. The blog that I wrote, was about that conversation that I had with her, but here we are... three years later and it still sits in my drafts...never published. Fear.
I had a conversation a few months ago that laid heavy on my heart in regards to homosexuality. It lays so heavy that I have to push pass this fear and share with you. The Bible says in 2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind
Fear is not of God, it is from the devil and he uses it as an attempt to stifle us into not speaking or doing as God says. If you pushed pass that fear and spoke (or acted) it would mean that you would speak a message to someone that needed to hear that message which could, in turn, change their life. This message is for you (including myself), Christians and I hope it convicts you:
I was having a conversation with a group of friends in regards to men and women in the church who are homosexual and serving in ministries. Let's take a worship leader for example, is it appropriate for him/her to lead worship if they are homosexual? Is that hurting or helping the body of Christ? A point of view was given that if they have been in the church for years and hearing the Word of God and are a Christian, by now they should have come out of that lifestyle? Why haven't they changed by now?
Please note I will hold my response to these questions until the end of the blog.
The conversation then switched over to homosexual artists. If you liked a singer and their songs and you then found out later down the road that they are homosexual, would that change the way you viewed them? A comment was made that this would change the way the person would think about them, they might not listen to them anymore or support their music anymore. This made me think of other conversations that I've had where people (remember I'm talking about Christians here) would stop watching a movie if there was a homosexual scene in it or not go see the movie at all if they knew ahead of time. Or some choose to not watch TV series such as The Fosters because it's about a homosexual couple. Oh no, we're not going to look at that...right?
My response to all of this:
Since when did it become okay to put the sin of homosexuality in a complete category from every other sin? Do we not say that one sin isn't bigger than the other? Are they not all the same? Just because a lot of times homosexuality is more visible to the eye than others that aren't easily seen (such as lust, fornication, masturbation etc) doesn't mean that we have a right to judge that more harshly than other sins. I don't think we understand that, that is what we do. We judge the sin that can seen more than the secret sins.
For the worship leader that we were we speaking about earlier. My response to that thought is: it's unfortunate that the person is still in that life style and hasn't been delivered yet. However, there are many of us in the church struggling with our own sins whether it's fornication, adultery or addictions, there is something that we struggle with or have struggled with, and we too have been in the church, serving in ministry and hearing the Word for years. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's okay to stay in that place, we need to be intentional about praying for deliverance and doing our part (i.e. take action) to get free. So why is it taking that that gay man or lesbian woman so long to get free? Probably the same reason it took you a while to get free from your mess.
In regards to homosexual artists, or acts on TVs and movies, I thought to myself that it was interesting how some of us choose to draw the line there. We're Christians, we don't condone and therefore will not watch it or not support those artists. Yet, we'll listen to songs and watch movies with foul language, degrading language, explicit sex scenes with an unmarried couple (or hook up). We'll tolerate seeing things that promote pride, lust, fornication etc and we'll be completely unphased by it. But homosexuality? Oh no that's not okay.
So what am I trying to say? I'm saying we need to do better, myself included. I too am guilty at times of separating one sin out from another as if one is worse that the next and that's really not the case. Just because a sin can be seen better than another does not give us the the right to judge it more harshly than another. Most of the times we shouldn't even be judging (can I be real?). We are called to judge each other righteously which means that I am sharing the truth with you or correcting you in love. If we're honest with ourselves, a lot the times we (Christians) judge, it comes from a place of hate or level of superiority where we are looking down on you for what we have "caught" you doing. Now I'm not telling you what artists you should and should not listen to, what movies you should and should not watch, that's between you and God. Just make sure that whatever you choose to do isn't contradictory.
Let's do better guys. Let's be Christ representers. Let's be love.
For those of you who may be intrigued by the blog I wrote three years ago but never published out of fear. I will finally break out of that and publish that blog next. Stay tuned.
Tasha
In regards to homosexual artists, or acts on TVs and movies, I thought to myself that it was interesting how some of us choose to draw the line there. We're Christians, we don't condone and therefore will not watch it or not support those artists. Yet, we'll listen to songs and watch movies with foul language, degrading language, explicit sex scenes with an unmarried couple (or hook up). We'll tolerate seeing things that promote pride, lust, fornication etc and we'll be completely unphased by it. But homosexuality? Oh no that's not okay.
So what am I trying to say? I'm saying we need to do better, myself included. I too am guilty at times of separating one sin out from another as if one is worse that the next and that's really not the case. Just because a sin can be seen better than another does not give us the the right to judge it more harshly than another. Most of the times we shouldn't even be judging (can I be real?). We are called to judge each other righteously which means that I am sharing the truth with you or correcting you in love. If we're honest with ourselves, a lot the times we (Christians) judge, it comes from a place of hate or level of superiority where we are looking down on you for what we have "caught" you doing. Now I'm not telling you what artists you should and should not listen to, what movies you should and should not watch, that's between you and God. Just make sure that whatever you choose to do isn't contradictory.
Let's do better guys. Let's be Christ representers. Let's be love.
For those of you who may be intrigued by the blog I wrote three years ago but never published out of fear. I will finally break out of that and publish that blog next. Stay tuned.
Waiting in line to learn how to salsa dance last year
xo Tasha
