Based upon the Word of God, if you are in a homosexual relationship, you are either a very disobedient Christian, or you are not a Christian.
Things that would indicate that you are not a Christian are the complete absence of a sense of guilt and your current manner of life.
The points for being a Christian are your conversion, if you have had one, and any previous record of Christian living.
Galatians 5:19-23 gives us two lists: the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit.
“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
Which list describes you? The first list is descriptive of things a man does, and the second is description of things a man has or is. The second list is not a personality description. It is the fruit of the Spirit. Regardless of your temperament or personality, these things will be evident in your life.
Concerning the physical sexual relationship, God made man and woman. In the beginning, He made one of each, and He has been making 50% of each ever since. That comes out to one apiece. God made reproductive organs which are pleasant means to express love and reproduce. Because God made the sensation pleasant, man has made the pleasantness an end and has prostituted it outside of God’s moral law. He has done this in many ways: adultery, fornication, multiple wives, concubines, prostitutes, male prostitutes, bestiality, homosexuality, etc. All of these are outside of God’s moral law. Some of them are outside God’s moral law but still within His natural law. For instance, divorce and remarriage is outside of God’s moral law but still within natural law.
Homosexuality is outside of both God’s moral law and His natural law.
Concerning emotional friendship with another man, that is biblically alright. Jesus and John, David and Jonathan are two biblical examples of close friendships. When these close friendships become exclusive, become sexual, or replace a wife, then they have gone beyond the legitimacy of man-to-man friendship.
Adult magazines and online content get used for vicarious sexual satisfaction. You might justify this as innocent release. When you do this, the enemy sets you up for a fall. Sex outside of God’s moral and natural laws and outside of vows to a spouse cannot be called a deep friendship. If you keep doing this, the result will be your “conscience being seared as with a hot iron” (1 Tim. 4:2). The nerve endings of your conscience will not work anymore. They do not conform to the teachings in the Scripture. You are allowing your conscience to determine right and wrong, and it does not work.
Read the first nine chapters of Proverbs. Although they speak of a woman (adulterous) instead of a man, the truth is the same.
If you are married, your vows to your wife are sacred.
“Drink water from your own cistern,
running water from your own well.
Should your springs overflow in the streets,
your streams of water in the public squares?
Let them be yours alone,
never to be shared with strangers.
May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer—
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be intoxicated with her love.
Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife?
Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?
For your ways are in full view of the Lord,
and he examines all your paths.”
(Proverbs 5:15-21)
“Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, ‘Why?’ It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. ‘The man who hates and divorces his wife,’ says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘does violence to the one he should protect,’ says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful. You have wearied the Lord with your words. ‘How have we wearied him?’ you ask. By saying, ‘All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them’ or ‘Where is the God of justice?’” (Malachi 2:13-17).
Read these paragraphs over and over until you think God’s thoughts after Him.
1 Corinthians 7:3-5 says, “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.” Your body belongs to your wife, and you are depriving her.
If you have children, you cannot fulfill your responsibility to them as their father. For children to grow up secure, they must see the closeness of their father and mother. Also, if they respect you and know what you are doing, they may wish to follow suit. And to be consistent, you should be able to endorse their homosexuality, which you cannot do. If they know you are a Christian and are immoral and do not honor your marriage vows, they could well reject Jesus Christ. And it is more likely that because they will not be getting enough affection and attention from their father they will seek other male affection. The result will be that they will be taken sexually in junior or senior high school.
You cannot go only on feelings. You must go on God’s absolute standard of right and wrong. Choose to turn away from homosexuality based upon truth, not on subjective feelings nor on cultural standards. Guilt is not about how you feel. Repentance is an act of the will based upon turning from real guilt.
Leaving your homosexual partner is a must in the repentance. Do not buy the lie that he will be hurt, as if that were primary. That was not important to you in leaving your wife and children.
Hedonism, a life of selfish pleasure, is where you are and where you are headed. You must turn around.
1 Corinthians 5 requires that you be removed from the body of Christ and turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved. This is not to be done if you are repentant.
If you are a Christian, that means accepting the Word of God as your authority. Do not accept an interpretation of the Word from someone who is violating the Word. Do not accept a justification for murder from someone who has committed murder, nor on divorce from someone divorced, nor on homosexuality from someone who is practicing homosexuality.
An attraction to the same sex is no basis to practice homosexual acts any more than an attraction to the opposite sex is a legitimate reason to practice heterosexual acts.
You know that God loves you, and that Christians in your
life love you. Accepting or endorsing your sin would not be love for you.
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