Jim (not his real name) was, at one time, a well-known church leader in our area who ministered  to homosexuals in our area because he was once heavily involved in “the life” himself. God had delivered him. Jim had what seems to be a standard story for men who have fallen into homosexuality. As a young boy, he was molested by an older man and as a result developed profound confusion and shame about his own masculinity and his own sexuality. He began with homosexual experiences in high school. Those accelerated in college. Jim was a Christian who attended church and served faithfully in his church. He had a leadership gift so he was expected to marry, have kids, and succeed in life. He did just that but; in addition, he had a secret life and a secret struggle in which he was not succeeding. After being married for a number of years he gave into his secret, abandoned his family, set his faith aside,  and embraced an openly homosexual lifestyle. However, his family and friends did not give up on him and neither did the Lord.

After two years of living out his homosexual yearnings he repented, returned to his faith and family, confessed everything to his church, and began to walk in sexual purity as the Lord gave him strength. If you ask Jim, it took the Lord, his family, and his church to overcome his homosexuality.

First, through serious Bible study he was convinced that homosexuality is sin regardless of what the homosexual lobby declares. His openness finally took his sin out of the dark and brought it into the light so others could pray and help. His wife, who had continued to pray for him after he left her and his children, forgave him and took him back knowing that the road ahead would not be easy.

Jim will tell you that what he needed most was absolute truth and absolute love in his life and men who showed him how to have godly friendships with other men without sexual overtones. Jim told a group of pastors one time that when he was young he really didn’t understand what it meant to be a man. He said the world of men fascinated him but he just couldn’t  crack the code for entry into that world.

By nature, Jim was sensitive and artistic but didn’t find many masculine models for men with those traits. After being molested, his confusion was even greater. However, when he returned to his church and family, the men in his congregation affirmed his masculinity and began to introduce him to other parts of the masculine world that were foreign to him such as sports, hunting, fishing, etc. They made Jim part of the group, extended healthy hugs, let him ask questions without embarrassment and, in essence, let his latent masculinity develop at his own pace.

Over time, the old man diminished and the new man flourished. His yearnings for sexual encounters with men went away and he learned to enjoy a sexual relationship with his wife. He is still serving the Lord today but his “old identity” no longer defines him. Jim is a man who was set free by love, the work of the Holy Spirit over time, and learning what it meant to be a godly man through friendships with other godly men. Jim never experienced any kind of demonic deliverance but still found freedom through openness and a committed church and family.

Jim believes that, in addition to the molestation he experienced as a young man, he also had a genetic predisposition toward homosexuality. We need to be clear that God does not make us with that predisposition, rather when we live in a fallen world many things are broken and damaged as well as our genetics. Because I have a predisposition to something at birth does not make it God’s will for me  to give into those predispositions. I was born with a predisposition toward lust, lying, selfishness, and laziness. As I got older, those intensified because of my fallen nature until I submitted those sins to the cross and the Holy Spirit.

As Christians, we are called to overcome those predispositions by the power of the Holy Spirit and God’s divine weapons. If something is called sin in the Bible then God provides a way out. It may be a truth encounter, a deliverance session, a spiritual family who prays for us and models healthy gender roles, or even the supernatural healing of damaged genes.   In the meantime, God calls us to resist those temptations with his strength until we find freedom from those obsessive promptings.   As a heterosexual, I am called to live a celibate life if single or a faithful life if married. I am called to tell the truth when it seems easier to lie and to avoid drunkenness when I want to medicate some disappointment in my life. I am called to submit rather than demanding my way and to forgive those I would rather reject.  Homosexual leanings fall into the same category.

A person can have homosexual leanings or temptations, not give into them, and still be pleasing to the Lord just as a heterosexual  can have strong desires for someone to whom he or she is not married,  not give into the impulses,  and still be pleasing to God. If any temptation has become an uncontrollable obsession then the believer has fallen into some form of bondage and deliverance is probably in order.  But with every temptation the Lord provides a door of escape. “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Cor.10:13).  We can find that door  if we sincerely seek it.

Homosexuality is not a new sin that has taken God by surprise. In our generation, the church must be clear that it is sin while at the same time creating an atmosphere where this sin can be confessed like all other sins and God’s remedies applied. I’m sure there are issues I have not spoken to related to homosexuality but, perhaps, some of the stories I have shared will be helpful to some. Be blessed.

Randy was in his 30’s and had been struggling with homosexuality off and on since high school. In the past three years his desires toward men had been obsessive. He was married with children but had been arranging clandestine meetings with men he met online and his shame and feelings of helplessness had become overwhelming. In my last blog I talked about his encounter with Jesus that had opened the door for hope again and the realization that he was still loved by his Heavenly Father.

After Randy had felt the arms of Jesus around him, his determination to resist the powerful temptations toward homosexual encounters was renewed. But the battle seemed constant and inevitably unwinnable. I began to speak to him about spiritual realities and spiritual warfare since Paul clearly states that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces in the heavenly realms (Eph.6:12). Randy had not heard much about that side of our faith in the denomination in which he had grown up yet his “supernatural” encounter with Jesus had opened him up to new possibilities.

One of Satan’s most destructive strategies is to assign demonic spirits to whisper thoughts that we experience as temptations and then to convince us that those thoughts are our own and that those thoughts define us. That was certainly true with Randy. I began to encourage him not to receive those thoughts as his own but as temptations or whispers from the enemy. His response should be to treat the thought as one being whispered by a spirit and to command the spirit to leave him in the name and authority of Jesus. That seemed a bit “out there” to Randy but he began to verbally command tempting spirits to leave him and the obsessive and oppressive nature of the temptations began to decrease but the voice was still a constant companion.

At that point I began to suggest deliverance from spirits of sexual perversion and homosexuality that were not just passing by but that had attached themselves to him. That thought was a profound jump for him and one he wasn’t immediately willing to receive.   However, he was determined to overcome this issue that had defined his life for years and so one day Randy, out of fear that he would eventually regress, consented.

And so, one afternoon in my office, a member of our congregation named James Morris, who had a great deal of experience in deliverance, and I prayed with Randy. We had him not only confess his sins but renounce them as well and forgive the man who had molested him years earlier. Then in the name and authority of Jesus, we began to command these spirits to release their hold on him and to leave him immediately. For the first few minutes we saw little happen but then Randy began to cough and gag. As we pressed in, Randy left his chair, hit the floor and began to crawl around with the spirits shouting, “No!” each time we commanded them to stop afflicting Randy and to leave. After a half hour of resisting, these spirits departed. Randy was absolutely sure that something had left him and although he was exhausted he was also at peace. James and I prayed for God to fill Randy with his Spirit, to grant him sexual holiness, and to restore his masculine soul. We told him to treat any further temptations as a spirit and to command them to leave.

Randy left my office that day and told me three months later that his love for his wife and sexual desires for her had returned. He was serving in his church again. Temptations from his past arose from time to time but without the power they once possessed. Randy wasn’t just managing his homosexual impulses but was free from them. The last I heard from Randy was about three years after his deliverance and he was still walking in freedom. I believe a demonic spirit had entered John through the molestation he had experienced as a child and as his confusion grew about his own masculinity and sexuality other spirits joined the first to create the shame and compulsions that ruled Randy for years. As the song declares, “There is power in the name of Jesus.”

Is every person involved in homosexuality ruled by demonic spirits? Probably not, but I believe many are and could be set free just as Randy was. I also know a young woman who was content to be single, serve the Lord, and live the busy life of a social worker. One day she met an older woman and developed a friendship with her but the friendship soon developed into a lesbian relationship with the two living together. That went on for a year with her concerned family praying for her each day. One day she simply walked away from the relationship and later said that she could pinpoint the moment when a spirit entered her and she could pinpoint the day it left. When it left, so did her desires for any sexual encounters with women. Again, a strong spirit had been at play in this woman’s life. Jesus has an answer for that.

In my next blog, we’ll talk about genetic propensities toward homosexuality and how some believers have dealt with that issue in their own lives. Blessings in Him.

Homosexuality is not monolithic. There are various roads and causes that lead to people defining themselves as “gay” and giving in to the impulses and lifestyle. In my last blog, I talked about Mark who had mistaken friendship for homosexuality. In this blog we will look at another path.

Randy (not his actual name) came into my office several years ago. He was in his thirties, a professional in his community, and had driven a considerable distance to see me at the recommendation of a woman who lived in his town with whom I had worked several months earlier. John was raised in a conservative Christian denomination which he still attended. He was married with small children and worked in a profession that made him a very public figure. John came in and after a bit of chitchat about where he grew up and what he did for a living, he collapsed into his chair and announced that my office was his last stop.

Obviously, that phrase got my attention because it could have meant any number of things. Randy then began to tell me his story. He was raised in a good Christian home but when he was seven or eight years old a family friend had molested him. That experience filled him with confusion and shame and created a secret in his life that became a place where the enemy could work freely and without hindrance as he does in all the secret places of our lives. Randy had begun to have some homosexual experiences in high school but pushed back against the impulses. He continued to feel the contradictions in his life but married in college and had children. His wife was totally unaware of his secret struggle.

Randy told me that there were seasons in his life when he was able to manage his homosexual impulses but there were seasons when his impulses managed him. He was in one of those seasons and was obviously filled with shame as he told me about the secret liaisons he had been having with men he met online. He felt alienated from his wife, who was a great wife and mother, but for whom he felt no attraction. He believed that God hated him and that there was no way back but hoped that I could say something that would change his mind. Randy told me that if I could not give him hope about his situation he was going to leave his wife, his children, his job, his town, and his faith and fully embrace “the lifestyle” because he could no longer battle the impulses.

Randy’s first great obstacle to healing and freedom was his belief that God hated him, was repulsed by him, and would no longer have anything to do with him. After all, he had prayed “a million times” for God to take away the feelings he had for other men but those feelings had persisted. His conclusion was that God no longer heard his prayers because he was so disgusted by Randy and his secret life.

I asked Randy if he had ever heard God speak to him. He said that he believed God had spoken to him clearly once or twice in his life as he grew up and made career decisions. I asked if he were willing to let God speak to him now about his situation. He was reluctant but desperate so he agreed. We closed our eyes and I simply asked Jesus to speak to Randy and tell him how he felt about him. Within seconds, Randy began to weep and sob almost uncontrollably.

After a minute or two, I asked him what Jesus had said to him. Randy replied, “ He didn’t say anything…but I literally felt his arms around me and I know he still loves me. He’s not done with me.” That was the first necessary breakthrough for Randy because that supernatural moment with Jesus restored his hope that life might be manageable again.

The enemy loves to prompt us to sin, fill us with shame about our sin, and then whisper that God has turned his back on us because of our perversion. It usually takes more than quoting John 3:16 to overcome these lies of the enemy. It usually takes a personal experience with God to give us hope again and demonstrate that God is still there for us. Randy received that experience that afternoon in my office and it made everything else possible.

More about Randy and his victory over  a spirit in my next blog.

I honestly can’t remember what I have written about this subject in my blog before this morning, but I feel as if the Lord wanted me to speak into this issue again. The issue is homosexuality. Who would have ever thought 50 years ago that our culture and many churches would have embraced this lifestyle, framed it as a civil right, and declared it to be good or natural? I want to say from the outset that I have no personal axe to grind with those who struggle with homosexuality. Some of the most talented and likeable people I have known struggle with this issue. However, the “rightness” or “goodness” of an issue cannot be determined by how nice or talented the person is who practices the sin. There are also many talented and likeable adulterers in our culture as well as pedophiles, drug dealers, embezzlers, gossips, liars, and child abusers.

The standard that establishes whether or not a behavior is a sin is the Word of God and if we are to be faithful followers of Jesus we cannot disregard that Word regardless of our cultural standards or even our personal feelings.   There was a time when slavery was the cultural standard but thankfully the church did not give into or embrace that standard forever. What if homosexuality is a kind of spiritual slavery? If we give in to the cultural norm then no one gets set free.

Without quoting all the scriptures that clearly define homosexuality as a sin I will just site a few references here for you to pursue if you are not already clear about the biblical standard – Gen. 19:4-7, Lev.18:22, I Cor. 6:9, Rom.1:26-27. By the way, Paul did not write his letters in an era uninformed about homosexuality. He wrote his letters in the midst of a culture in which homosexuality was widely practiced and accepted by the ruling and the “educated” classes of Rome.

I have not had extensive experience ministering to those struggling with homosexuality but I have had some experiences that may be representative and may be helpful to someone reading this blog. These stories will require a couple of blogs so I hope you will be patient. Let’s begin with a young man I will call Mark. Mark walked into my office one day as the young adult son of church members where I served as an associate pastor at one time. Mark had just graduated from a Christian college and was still trying to figure out life. He came in, dropped into a chair, and got right to the point. He asked, “What does the Bible say about homosexuality?” I took him to several passages in both the Old and New Testament and read those to him. He sat there devastated and explained that we was a practicing homosexual and a Christian but had trusted his friends who had told him that scripture, especially the New Testament, had nothing whatsoever to say about homosexuality.

I asked Mark to tell me his story. He had gone off to college and was assigned a dorm room with a new friend named Ron. He said that they hit it off immediately and soon became close friends. After a year as dorm mates they were so connected as friends that they moved off campus and shared an apartment together. At some point they felt so emotionally connected that they couldn’t imagine life without that relationship.

Mark told me that eventually they came to accept that they must be “gay” to have those kinds of feelings for one another and then just gave into the lifestyle and the urgings of other “gay friends” they had met. I asked Mark if he had been sexually attracted to Ron before they discovered their “homosexual selves?” He said, “Of course not. But once we understood who we were, we started being sexual with one another because that’s what you do.”

Mark and I visited for another half hour. We talked about David and Jonathan whose “souls were knit together” as best friends without being homosexual. We talked about Jesus and the apostle John who seemed to have a very deep connection. I explained to Mark that we can enter into deep, same-sex friendships that are just that – friendships – and the relationship can still be godly. Here’s the problem: Our culture is so broken that we can’t separate love from sex so when people discover a deep emotional connection with one another (as brothers and sisters might experience), our culture imposes a perverse sexual template on that relationship rather than letting it stand as a deep friendship. Solomon himself said, “There is a friend who is closer than a brother” and he was without question a blatant heterosexual. Satan loves to take what is holy and distort it into something perverse. He has done that with friendships. Mark was struck with the possibility that he was not, in fact, homosexual by nature and left my office in an almost dazed state. I didn’t see him again for a long time.

Two years later, I was sitting alone in the LAX airport waiting for a connecting flight and Mark walked up to me out of the crowd with an attractive young lady next to him. He introduced me to his wife who “knew his story” and although they were working on some issues they were doing fine. Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” In Marks’s case, he had been deceived into believing he was homosexual by nature but the truth released him to live out his life as God intended. I’m convinced that others are in bondage for the same reasons. God created us to have deep same-sex friendships without sex and without sin and those deep feelings of friendship do not make us homosexual.

In my next blog, I will tell you how being set free from a spirit of homosexuality released two people I know personally from a lifestyle of homosexuality. Be blessed in Him.

Lies are a great strategy of the enemy to take us out of the game.  It’s simple.  If you hear a lie often enough you come to believe that it is true.  Once you believe that it is true, you will act in ways that seem to confirm the truth of the lie you have believed. Satan is a master at orchestrating such deceptions.

Let me give you a simple illustration.  A young woman is brought up in a home where she experiences a great deal of criticism and rejection.  On occasion she is told that she is worthless and that no one will ever want her.  She stores that lie up in her heart and comes to believe that she is unworthy of love and friendship.  She comes to believe that if anyone ever truly got to know her they would reject her. To avoid inevitable rejection she avoids relationships.   On the first day of school she arrives early and sits in the back where she won’t have to risk much interaction with others students who she believes will reject her just as her parents said. When students come in, she avoids eye contact and appears sullen. If they speak to her she makes little response. Her body language announces that she is not interested in striking up a conversation and so the new students honor her non-verbal sign that cries “Stay Away.”  At the end of the day no one has spoken to her and in some classes no one even sat next to her.  She leaves that day with her belief that she is unlovable and unworthy of friendship reinforced.  The lie she believed about her lack of worth and significance produced behaviors that reinforced the belief.  All she had to do was smile and be friendly to have a totally different experience.

Some lies are planted in our homes behind closed doors while others are planted by our culture through the media and our education system. Several years ago I had a young man whom I had never met come into my office.  I’ll call him Todd (not his name). He was the grown son of some members of the church where I was serving.  He introduced himself and quickly and got to the point.  He simply and bluntly asked me what the Bible had to say about homosexuality.  I read several passages to him from both the Old and New Testaments that clearly stated that a homosexual lifestyle was sin.  He looked devastated as I finished reading the passages.  I asked him why he came in.  He told me his story.  When he was eighteen he went off to college and shared a dorm room with another young man he had never met.  However, they soon became close friends and in their sophomore year left the dorm and shared an apartment.  Todd then told me how emotionally attached they became to one.  It was then than both of them gave into their feelings and began a homosexual relationship.  He felt a great deal of shame about it but couldn’t bring himself to break off the relationship.

As we visited, I asked him if he and his friend had been sexually attracted to one another in the early stages of the relationship.  Todd seemed to be shocked that I had even asked the question.  His answer was revealing.  “No! The thought of it was repulsive but because we felt so strongly about one another we knew we must be gay and so the sex just naturally followed.”  We continued to talk about the possibility that men and women could have deep friendships and emotional bonding without a sexual component to the relationship.  Scripture says that David and Jonathan had such a deep emotional bond that their “souls were knot together.”  Solomon said. “There is a friend who is closer than a brother.”  There is no suggestion that there was any sexual component to these friendships.  They were just best friends.

The cultural lie that Todd had bought into was that love and sex are equivalent.  Somehow we have lost the ability to separate the two – even among friends.  Fifty years ago boys had best friends with whom they shared their deepest fears and greatest hopes. Young girls did the same and even walked around in public places holding hands.  There was nothing sexual about the relationships.  The all grew up, got married, raised children and continued to stay in touch with best friends.  Now the lie is that if you feel emotionally drawn to anyone of the same sex you by definition are gay.  If you are gay then the relationship must become sexual.  That is simply a lie and our media and education system reinforce the lie.

We speak of homosexuality as if it is another gender – male / female / homosexual.  God did not create that category.  He simply made them male and female. I’m not saying that all homosexual relationships are friendships distorted by deception. There are other factors as work in many of those relationships. But I know many are deep friendships that have been redefined and distorted by our culture. Deep same-sex friendships without lust are very biblical and healthy.  Our cultural preoccupation with sex has all but stolen these godly friendships from us.  Those who are caught up in the gay lifestyle are afraid to walk away from it because they fear they are doomed to never have love in their lives.  But love and deep friendship can exist without lust and sex.  Deep emotional connection can occur between friends just as it can with family members.  This cultural lie has cost us on many fronts

Todd was astonished to discover that his relationship with his partner could have remained a “best friends” relationship without sex and without shame.  In that moment he realized that perhaps he wasn’t born with a genetic mandate to be gay. He thanked me for my time and walked out the door.  Two years later I was sitting alone at an airport in L.A. waiting on a connecting flight.  Out of the crowd Todd walked up to me with a young lady next to him.  He introduced me to his wife.  He said she knew everything about his past and that he still had some struggles related to his past  but they were working through all that.

Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” If truth sets us free then lies keep us in bondage.  Satan is the master of lies so we must be masters of truth. Scripture is our foundation and if anything is true, then it is God’s truth – whether it comes by scientific discovery or revelation.  It is all God’s truth and will not contradict God’s word.  Whether a lie is planted in our hearts by hurtful families or by cultural propaganda, it blinds us to who we are in Christ and the destiny and glory he has for each of us.  Paul told Timothy not to lay hands on any man quickly.  He meant that Timothy should not be too quick to give authority to a man he had not proven.  The same is true for cultural beliefs and assertions. Don’t be too quick to agree just because you keep hearing it stated over and over.  Weigh it against God’s word.  Do your homework.  Know the truth because knowing it will keep you free.  Be blessed today in God’s truth.