Healing for Homosexuals
| Sexual Sin & Bondage: What Does It Look Like To Be Healed? Part 1 |  |  |  |
| Written by Dr. David Kyle Foster |
Being the definer of words implies knowledge, expertise and authority. It's a very subtle trick to try to redefine the terms used in an argument - a kind of intellectual "stacking of the deck " used by cults and other heretics throughout history.
The gatekeepers of our modern culture know of this power and have for decades been redefining the terms and ideas that fashion and direct our social beliefs and actions. Two lesbians are now a "family ". Killing unborn children is now a "right ".
Lying with a man as with a woman is now "good ", "natural " and "the creative will of God ". And as if that weren't absurd enough, our nation's top leader has redefined "sexual relations " and would even have us question what the definition of "is " is.
When the long-standing definition of words has been surreptitiously redefined, the intellectually naive will be led to believe that by going along, they are actually holding fast to the truth that has been passed down to them, when in fact they are departing from it altogether.
We are engaged in a culture war where the relativizing philosophies of po st-modernism are reinterpreting the definition of terms once defined very differently by the Judeo-Christian worldview. And there can be no more evident arena for this deception than in the defining of what it looks like to be set free, healed or transformed from sexual sin and brokenness.
Early on, leaders of the gay community recognized the importance of being the ones who defined the terms of the debate. They successfully persuaded the public to believe that in order to be "healed " of homosexuality, one would have to be rendered free from same-sex, erotic temptation. (A similar coup was won in assuming that "homosexual " is an inherent identity rather than emotional brokenness).
In truth, being "healed " of homosexual confusion is not a matter of being permanently set free from homosexual temptation any more than being healed from an addiction to cigarettes means being permanently set free from the temptation to smoke.
Other Wrong Assumptions That May Prevent True Healing
. The assumption that I can learn and perform some formula for transformation without entering into a loving and dependent relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
They have a self-focus in the matter of being made holy, as though they were the focus of the command. The truth is that intimacy with God through His Son Jesus Christ is the true focus and the goal of every divine command. Achieving right behavior is not an end unto itself but rather a fruit of what truly is the goal of life - a personal, deep and loving relationship between God and man. Holiness is birthed from such intimacy with God.
It is a fruit of right relationship, not the achiever of right relationship. Hence, the healing of any condition that is unholy can never be made permanent if someone attempts to achieve it outside of that relationship.
For the person who refuses to enter into intimacy with God, who refuses to give their life to Jesus Christ, healing will always be temporary and incomplete. It will never be established in the foundation of their souls. It will always be an effort, a burden, and an ongoing cause of fear and insecurity. It will forever remain a maintenance program rather than a transformation program.
. The assumption that I have to achieve healing through my own will, power and effort.
Even those who are in the process of coming to know God can be tripped up by the incorrect assumption that God expects them to achieve the transformation. It's the old, "God gave you a mind. He expects you to use it ", "Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" ethos that many of us were taught.
Ironically, the assumption is based on a proper view of justice, but one that has failed to take into account the abject inability of man to correct the damage that he has caused and the redeeming grace of Christ that has been provided to correct the damage.
We also resist because to accept grace means we are beholding to the giver of that grace. It means that we have lost control and become dependent. It's too humbling and excruciatingly uncomfortable to the spirit of independence that has driven our fallen nature since the Garden of Eden.
The reality of God's provision for healing is this - we are completely dependent on Him for the power, for the knowledge, the wisdom and direction for our healing. And what is more, we will remain completely dependent on Him to be kept from falling until that day when Christ returns and we are then fixed in our chosen state of obedience or rebellion.
This means we must not only go to God for healing, but that we must remain in Him, committed to Him, dead to self and a bondslave of Christ. Nothing grates more against our natural man than that!
The assuming of a time-frame and a particular order for seeing results.
When we try to heal ourselves, or utilize the services of a psychotherapist or some other human "expert " in place of entering into relationship with God, the Bible says that we are made foolish through the very "wisdom" of man that we have chosen in place of God.
A good trained professional (particularly a Christian one) may be able to outline the necessary issues that need to be faced and addressed in any given healing process, but they cannot by looking into your heart and soul provide them all. Nor can they accurately predict the timing and the order of how those issues must be addressed without specific revelation from the Holy Spirit.
And while many will give lip-service to God when starting a counseling session, many aren't truly reliant on His leading during the session. Their reliance is more often on their expertise, their training and a prideful sense that they can accurately read you and your problem. It is a propensity that afflicts all of us who counsel others.
Everyone is unique. How they became broken and enmeshed in sinful lifestyles is unique to them. A human counselor can at best guess at what is wrong and how to fix it. God the Holy Spirit knows exactly what to do and when to do it. Many people abort their healing process simply because they never have done it properly.
They charge ahead, (with all good intentions), but in their own wisdom (or the wisdom of some therapist), and fail to wait upon the Lord for that "still small voice " that tells them what to do and when to do it. They often do the right thing, but in the wrong timing and when it fails, assume it was the wrong thing to have done.
Or they may do the right thing, but fail to do it in concert with other things that must be done simultaneously in order for the desired results to be achieved. Again, because it fails, they conclude that they did the wrong thing, or worse, that they have done the right thing and can now move on to other things in order to realize the complete result.
Can you imagine making a cake that way - throwing whatever ingredients together in whatever order and timing suits your inclination of the moment?
"Faith " is a good example of a necessary ingredient that must accompany other more obvious actions. I can do and say all the right spiritual things, but if I do not believe God's promises in connection with them, none of those actions or words are going to achieve anything.
One day I was in worship when the Lord asked me if I believed 2 Cor 3:18, which says, "As we gaze upon the Lord's glory, we are being transformed into His likeness ". I replied, "Yes, Lord, I believe all of the Bible!" He said to me, "No you don't.
As you worship me, consciously and deliberately set your mind on assuming that what 2 Cor 3:18 promises is actually happening. For example, assume that as you are worshiping Me for my purity, that My purity is being transformed into you - literally! "
It was like night and day after that. When I assumed that the things I worshiped about God were literally being transformed into me, they actually began to be. I could see measurable changes every few months. The difference was startling.
Most of us believe that if we intellectually agree with something in Scripture that we are believing it. That is a western concept of "faith ". To believe something in the Biblical sense means to assume it is happening! It means that your life changes to become consistent with that belief.
So you can see how this extra ingredient of Biblical faith is critical to the effective working of other actions in our life with God. Without it, right actions may not work right, and we may erroneously conclude that those actions were not the right ones for us.
When well intentioned Christians fail to rely on the leading of the Holy Spirit, who is The Counselor, and rely instead on another human's expertise or education to lead them on a healing journey, all manner of confusion and misunderstanding can be created.
Strewn along the path are all sorts of right actions done at the wrong time or not in concert with other necessary things, now ignored as having been accomplished, when in fact they still need to be done at the right time and with other right things.
This is why the fallen Christian is much harder to help than the fallen nonbeliever. The Christian who has fallen into a bondage to sin easily convinces himself that he has done most of the "spiritual " things and embarks on a desperate search for some new psychological clue, some new angle that's going to be the key for setting him free. The odds are, he has never truly done the first things under the direction of the Holy Spirit, but has done them as self-led, religious acts that have no power in that context.
The Evidence of Relationship with God
If Spirit-led healing is occurring, over time you will see primary shifts in behavior, identity, fantasy and attraction.
The Holy Spirit is God. If you have given Him permission to be the Lord of your life, He will do exactly that. That means, when you pursue sin, He will bring conviction and correction. The idea that a true believer can blithely continue in a sinful lifestyle for the rest of their life is contrary to the witness of Scripture.
The book of 1st John is a treatise on how you can know if you truly love Jesus and have eternal life (1 Jn 5:13): we are truly repentant when we sin (1:10); we do not love the world anymore (2:15); willful, knowing, and habitual sin is progressively being eradicated from our life (1:5-7; 2:4; 3:6,9-10; 5:18); we have a growing love of the brethren (2:9-11; 4:7-8,12,20-21); we believe that Jesus is the Messiah (5:1), the Son of God (5:5), and our Savior (5:6-12); and we love God and are progressively more and more obedient to His commands (2:17,29; 3:24; 4:13; 5:1-3).
The Book of James also makes the point that faith without the expected fruit of good works is not true faith at all. In other words, slow start or fast, there will be a changed heart and life after one truly gives their life to Jesus Christ.
If we truly give our life to Him and subsequently resist this process of sanctification, God may allow calamity to come upon us (1 Cor 5:1-5), even unto death if necessary (Acts 5:1-11; 1 Jn 5:16), but all for the purpose of preventing the dominance of evil in our lives and to bring us back into relationship with Him.
In other words, whatever discipline is required, it is no longer focused on punishment (since Christ has taken our punishment upon Himself) but rather reconciliation and our ultimate good.
The Bible is very clear that many who have named the name of Christ, even some having done miracles in His name, have never known Him (Mt 7:21-23; 22:11-14). Their profession of faith never came from the heart, was never born from true repentance.
The Bible also indicates that although no one has the power to take a believer out of the Father's hand (Jn 10:27-29), there will be some who taste of the knowledge of God through the Spirit of God who will willfully walk away from Him (Mt 26:21-25; Heb 6:4-6; 10:26-29; 2 Pet 2:20-22) and be lost. I suspect such cases as that are extremely rare.
The Process Described
Why does the picture of the healing process vary so widely? Multiple elements account for the variety.
. People begin their healing process at different places of mental and spiritual knowledge and health. Some don't know a blessed thing about God. Others were raised in the Church. Some are so psychologically and emotionally messed up at salvation that it takes a while for them to get to the place where they can see and think clearly enough to respond appropriately to the new impulses of the Holy Spirit within them.
Others have been so damaged in their ability to trust, so taken advantage of by authority figures in their past, that it takes a while for them to learn to trust the proddings of the Holy Spirit within. The battle within is not a matter of hating the holy impulses, but more one of learning to trust them and learning how to let them take charge.
We sometimes make the mistake of looking only at the outside - at the visible achievements and progress being made. We want to see tangible fruit and sometimes demand to see it before it is ready to emerge. God looks on the heart. He is interested in new desire and new intent. His interest is in the direction that the heart is set on, not the perfect accomplishment of that intent.
. And so, the length, the extent, the details, and the outward success of the process varies.
. Some people fail to understand that God's goal for them is a progressive walk toward greater and greater levels of holiness. They see salvation as a ticket to heaven without much else required.
And so, they settle for less than God offers and stunt their own growth through the ingratitude of compromise and continued identification with the world. Having removed "the big sin " from their life, they feel they have pleased God enough and done all that any one can be expected to do (except of course for special saints who they see as having a higher calling).
. Other people grow weary in the battle and give up. (In a sense, these folks have a stopwatch on God and when He doesn't make everything better or easy within their time-frame, they give up on the call that He has placed on their lives).
They have never changed their focus from their own comfort to living for the glory of God. So when the pain of healing or the fray of the battle approaches, they shrink back in order to avoid the pain and/or the conf lict.
. Some never come to see a partial healing as a danger because they have taken their cues from the lukewarm, Christian culture around them. If others are getting by without much effort, (especially leaders), they assume that that's an acceptable way of doing things. They fail to lift their eyes to the higher call in Christ Jesus.
There are many factors that play a part in how extensive the transformation will be for any given individual in this life. If God were to just zap you and instantly heal everything, you would not grow.
You would remain an immature person and thus extremely vulnerable to reverting to your previous behavior. Only in the slow process of healing each contributing issue can you be set free and grown up into a mature, Christlike human being.
God certainly has the power to achieve complete healing in everyone. However, He allows us free will to decide how committed we're going to be to the process and we reap a result consistent with that commitment.
So the commitment of a person to do whatever it takes to be healed is very important. In many ways, this is similar to the commitment required of alcoholics and drug addicts. Most failure to realize complete transformation can be found in a reluctance to go the distance, no matter how long it takes, and no matter how difficult it becomes.
Like the alcoholic, the person must recognize that they cannot heal themself and that they must pursue an intimate and dependent relationship with God for the power and direction necessary for healing.
Many people find that they do not have this level of commitment when it comes to working through the more difficult issues. Why?
Many people are motivated out of a performance-orientation rather than genuine love for Jesus Christ. - Many people find it difficult to rely on God, to believe what He says and to commit fully to His Kingdom and they refuse to give up their anger and mistrust in order to obtain this ability. - They get sidetracked by the voices of: |
Am I saying then that everyone who gets with the program will become completely heterosexually oriented without any homosexual inclinations?
Some put a timetable on God's promises. If He doesn't heal them in such and such a period of time, they're going back to the lifestyle. God won't bow to their manipulation. To do so, would be for Him to sin. - Others don't approach God's promises with faith, but with an attitude that says "I'll try this and see if I want to commit to it " or "I'll try this but I won't believe it until I see it. " This is not faith! The Kingdom of God is not a supermarket from which we pick what we would like and what we don't like. - Some simply love the idolatry and the pleasure of homosexual lust and refuse to completely forsake it. They try to hold on to a piece of it as an option. In essence, they are trying to remain the god of their life instead of submitting to the One who is God. - That's what the gay community would like you to think is the criteria for being healed. - It's a false criteria - one not used for any other form of sickness, desire or orientation. - If I haven't smoked in 20 years, but today am tempted to, according to that criteria, I would have to still call myself a smoker, even though I haven't smoked in 20 years! - Even with cancer, you are declared healed after 5 years. - There will always remain memories of past pleasures, and in moments of weakness and distraction from who you truly are, a desire to be someone you aren't. - Temptation isn't the criteria, but rather a consistent history of how you see yourself, how you operate, what primarily drives you and with what you identify yourself. In a healed person, their identity is firmly rooted in who they really are - a new creation, united with Christ, and nothing can, for long, distract them from that destiny and identity. There are a number of observable factors that can make one person's transformation longer and more arduous than another's. In my 20 years experience of observing the process, the turnaround occurs more quickly in cases where the person has: - refused to adopt the identity of homosexual (having considered themselves a broken heterosexual rather than inherently gay); - refused to enter into the darker and more perverse activities found in the gay subculture; - had some positive experience with heterosexual sex prior to changing over to homosexual partners; - started the healing process rather early on in their life. And so, an older man who has been deeply identified as a homosexual for 30 or 40 years and who has engaged in the darker aspects of homosexual life with countless partners and who has had experiences in life that gave him a revulsion for the female body may not live long enough to see the complete transformation (although I don't want to say that is a hard and fast rule, considering the power of God). There may simply be more to overcome that that person has years of life left to work through. It should be said however, that those years of working through will reap great rewards for him in heaven. Despite the fact that he may retain a significant level of homosexual orientation for the short remainder of his life, his commitment to abstinence, to celibacy, to turning from homosexual fantasy and to pursuing a holy life will bring great joy to the heart of God. For others, especially those who begin the turnaround in their teens and twenties, and for some, even thirties, there exists a hope that their healing can be significant enough for them to marry, have kids and realize many of the blessings that God has designed for those who love Him and who live according to His Word. The length of the healing process can also be affected by the number of factors that need to be overcome. Some have a homosexual orientation simply from having failed to bond with their same-sex parent on an emotional level. Others have the orientation simply as the result of the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. Others, however, may have multiple factors, including emotional incest with the opposite-sex parent, a history of humiliating attempts at relating to the opposite sex, intense parental or peer misconduct, narcissistic personality disorder, etc. Such cases may take more time because there are more issues that need to be healed. |
In short, the transformation process for the homosexual (as for any bondage) is affected by several broad categories: |
