Freedom from Homosexuality
Cover of Sexual Healing| Q&A - From a Someone Struggling with Homosexual Confusion |  |  |  |
Written by Dr. David Kyle Foster |
This is a letter in response to someone who struggles with homosexual inclinations. He has given his life to Jesus Christ (which is a prerequisite for sharing in God's healing grace and power) but still needs direction in the transformation process to heterosexuality.
Dear friend, Thanks for your letter. I know how complicated things can be when seeking healing from something that is as deeply planted in one's being as homosexual feelings are. First of all, I'm glad to read that you now have someone locally that you can turn to. That is very important. There is also a national network of ministries for those who struggle with homosexuality called "Exodus International". Go online to www.exodusinternational.org and they will give you the name and number of the affiliate nearest you. Even if they don't have a local affiliate, they have all kinds of other resources, so definitely call them. Those outside the U.S. can find help by going to www.exodusglobalalliance.org. It's also very good that you are in a church that embraces sexually broken people. You asked for resources from us. We have a reference manual entitled Sexual Healing that would be of great benefit to both you and to those who are trying to minister to you. It is designed specifically for both sides of the issue and it covers related sexual sins such as pornography and masturbation. It is basically what the Lord taught me as I was set free from my sexual bondages - the same ones you have. We also have many conferences on CD and DVD as well as a huge catalog of TV programs that you can watch online (www.PurePassion.us). As you know, the homosexual condition invades every area of life. I noticed that in my life. Consequently, I knew that I had to go for God 100% - that I could not compromise or hold back anything in my commitment to Him. I also had to live in the knowledge that I was incapable of doing anything about my condition - that God would have to transform me by His supernatural power. All I had to do was to pursue Him, seek Him and rely on Him, continually. I had to make an irrevocable determination that giving in to temptation was no longer going to be an option in my life, so that when I was tempted, I had to turn to God for help. I had to commit to the struggle, the pain and the battle of the transformation process - as Jesus did, suffering because of the glory that He knew awaited Him at the end. I have been transformed. I was a male prostitute for 10 years, maxed out sin-wise, and God transformed me because I meant business and I was willing to do whatever it took to get healed. As I pursued an intimate relationship with God the Father, He re-parented me and bonded with me. He gave me what I had been looking for in other men by showing Himself so much more beautiful and desirable. It took years of seeking Him in worship, but the transformation did occur, little by little, just as promised in 2 Cor 3:18 - that as we gaze upon His glory, He transforms us into His image. From your letter, you sound like you have what it takes. Believe me, that is rare. And I have every confidence that you will be set free. As God heals those things that made you seek other men for sexual pleasure, your natural heterosexuality (which has been there all along, suppressed) will naturally begin to emerge, and like millions of other ex-gays, you will likely marry and have children and praise God for the rest of your life for the incredible miracle that He has done in you. By the way, Lori Rentzel's booklet, Emotional Dependency, will help you with the problem of "bending" toward certain men. Most of our problems in the healing process are the result of self-striving - trying to heal ourself. Healing actually comes when we give up, completely, and simply pursue the Father, doing only those things which He tells us to do in those moments of intimacy with Him. God has not forsaken you, although at times it may seem that way because you may have been so busy trying to heal yourself, or trying to keep yourself from sinning that you haven't been spending time developing a relationship of intimacy and trust with God. He's waiting until you get over that, and start listening to Him. If you need help in the "hearing God" department, read Peter Lord's, Hearing God or Joyce Huggett's, The Joy of Listening to God. Now that I have addressed your individual situation, let me give you the advice that I give everyone seeking healing from homosexual desire: First understand that God does not permanently deliver us from being tempted, although He did suggest that we ask for deliverance from temptation - a day to day deliverance. We are still living in a world where free will choices must be made - that means choices made in a context where both good and evil try to influence us. That is what makes right choices meaningful. So, for the rest of your life, you will be subject to temptations from old memories, from your flesh and from the demonic realm. Healing is a process whereby God heals you of what makes you so vulnerable to the temptations - the sins that empower them, the beliefs that draw you toward them, etc. He also replaces those needs with Himself, naturally fulfilling what is otherwise a reasonable need. The homosexual inclination is usually a reaction to a father-figure void or the result of confusion brought on by childhood molestation. God the Father fills the father void with Himself, if you pursue Him to do so. He also heals the various issues surrounding having been molested as a child. God will give you the power not to sin, but you must want to use it. Most of the healing process comes in the learning to want to use God's power. I did not have any affairs after getting saved. I owe that to two things: from finding out from the start from a pastor that I could not overcome my problem through my own strength. I turned to God with a full understanding of my complete dependence on His power and He was there with the power to keep me from giving in to my temptations. The second thing I realized right up front was that I was thoroughly sick of sin and the bondage it held me in. I wanted out and I wanted out all the way and for good. My will was very strong in that regard. If your will is weak, that is what causes failure in these areas. Ask God to strengthen your will to do rightly. Also if you are under any delusion that you are going to achieve healing in your own power, you will also fail. These two things must be understood and acted on accordingly. When I got saved, I got delivered from the power that many sexual sins had had over me up to that point - sexual addiction, pornography, exhibitionism, voyeurism and homosexuality. The temptations didn't stop, but God showed me how to turn to Him to put out the power of the temptations when they came. Masturbation took a lot longer to get delivered from. However, after several years, I was set free from its power and have lived under the Spirit's power for 15 years now. The only slip I've had (other than mental slips) was looking at a porno magazine in an airport 2 years after I got saved. God disciplined me instantly for that and it worked. During these past 15 years where God has kept me from falling, He has also healed me of the various emotional and psychological issues that made me so vulnerable to sexual sin in the first place. I will always be vulnerable, but not like I used to be. You can have victory over your sin as soon as your will has been formed into God's will. When you want to do what God wants you to do, then it's easy. The problem is that we hold on to a love of sin, often unconsciously still desiring the things that we are trying to get delivered from. That is why it took so long for me to stop masturbation. I really wanted it even though I was praying all the right words to have it taken out of my life. God goes according to what we really want in our heart, not according to our words. If you still fall into sexual sin (beyond the brief mental lapses that we all fall into) your problem is probably that your will is not fully formed into God's will yet. The way to fix that is to pursue an intimacy with the Father where you begin to experience revelation of who He is, how beautiful, how powerful, how loving. Also, you need to learn to live in grace and understand that you are saved because Jesus died for you, not because you live a holy life. If you have asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, your confessed sins are covered by the blood He has already shed, whether the sin is past, present, or future. That is grace. Look at Titus 3:11-14. When you see that God is going to love you unconditionally, no matter how often you fall, your heart is going to grow closer to Him and your will will start to change. Eventually, you will want to do what He wants you to do simply because His love and His grace are so irresistible. Regularly getting in His presence, worshiping Him, fixing your eyes on Him is the whole deal. Focus on that and everything else will naturally fall into place. The deliverance from sin's power to control you can be quick but the healing from the hurts in your life that persuaded you to rebel into acting sinfully may take a while. These are two different things. I am still tempted. However, over the years God has healed me of the hurts in my life and revealed Himself to me irresistibly and so the power of those temptations has weakened considerably. As long as I remain in a dependent state, focused on Him, God has promised to keep me from falling. (Read the end of Jude). Common to everyone is the fact that our thoughts and sometimes even our feelings can often be planted within us by demonic deception. They often lie to us. And so, we must begin to live according to what the Bible says rather than what our emotions or thoughts are saying to us at any given moment. Two really good books for this are Neil Anderson's, The Bondage Breaker, and Winning the Battle Within. Take your focus off of the problem and concentrate on developing intimacy with God. You will find that the rest of your questions get answered directly from the Holy Spirit Himself during some of those times of intimacy. There are hundreds of little hidden keys and understanding that only the Holy Spirit can reveal to you because your bondage is unique to you, like a fingerprint. Only God can unravel it for you. In the meantime, you must remove from your life everything that tempts you to sin. You're fooling yourself if you think you're even going to take the smallest step unless you do this very fundamental act. The Holy Spirit will show you what to get rid of. If you cannot do this, it is an indication that you are in a state of sorrow, but not repentance. You are sorry that you are in such a bondage but you have not yet seen the evil of it and truly repented. When you see pornography or homosexual behavior, etc. for the evil that it is, then your will will be strengthened to turn from it. These perversions are a part of what tortured our Lord Jesus. They are responsible for the stripes on His back. Get angry at what they have done to you as well as to Christ. Spend some time alone, meditating on the Cross - reading the scriptures about that night when Jesus was crucified, asking God to give you a righteous anger over the evils that caused it. For a long time, the Holy Spirit was telling me not to go to certain places because there were spirits of lust that would pull me in. You've got to listen when the Spirit reveals such things to you. You've got to pursue Him for these revelations. Sit at length in your room every day and wait on God. Mix it up. Sing some praise songs, read some scriptures, talk with Him about what is on your heart. Don't get religious about it - recognize His presence in the room with you and practice recognizing it throughout each and every day. You also need to concentrate on refusing the spirits of discouragement, condemnation and hopelessness. These are demonic spirits that need to to resisted and cast away in the name of Jesus. Get aggressive with these things! If you're not getting fully delivered from the power of sin when you throw out your pornography or whatever, it is probably because you are not replacing it with what is better. You must develop an intimacy with God that fulfills the needs that you were meeting through your addictions. Ask Him specifically to heal you and to fulfill supernaturally the various desires and needs that you have been meeting through sin. This is not about claiming something, it is about entering into a deep, permanent, daily, intimate relationship with God that so fulfills your needs that the sinful desires lose their attraction. Christ is so much more beautiful and capable of meeting your needs and fulfilling your desires. Once you have received enough revelations of God to realize that, then the battle becomes much much easier. What will it look like when you are healed? You will have such a passion for Jesus that when temptation comes, you will not be fooled by it any longer, nor attracted to it more than you are to God. You will always be vulnerable to the things you used to be attracted to. However, Christ will become more attractive. God the Father will bond with you and complete your masculine identity for you, and your heterosexuality (which has been there all along) will emerge naturally. You will have become skilled and it will be a habit for you to immediately turn to God when temptation hits, for His power (not your own) to quench the sin. It will be a natural reflex through repeated use. You will have learned well the fact that if you allow lustful thoughts any time to dwell in your mind, they gain power to coerce you and you will not allow that to happen. You will have been persuaded by God's grace and His love, and your will will be formed like His, truly wanting and desiring the beauty of purity and holiness. How do you start getting these things? Pursue Him daily with worship, scripture and prayer. Fix your thoughts, fix your eyes on Him, and as it promises in 2 Cor 3:18, you will be transformed into His image. I hope this has helped you get things straight as to what to do now. If you can, get our Sexual Healing book. Another excellent book for you to read is Andy Comiskey's Pursuing Sexual Wholeness. And don't forget to take advantage of our treasure-trove of video resources available through our website and our free iPhone app. Let me know if I can be of any further help. Yours for His glory, David Kyle Foster, Director |
