Defeating my Giant moved from C&E

[zachmartin]

I often wonder how I can feel one way but know that the Word of God tells me otherwise … how I can want to be with him so much and be with Him. I know that having the feelings of homosexuality is not wrong; it is the act of it… it is when sex and lust come into picture that it is sin. But, longing to be with the man you want to be with and knowing to do God’s will isn’t exactly easy. Depression and loneliness are sure to set in. Knowing that I am a child of the King and knowing that He has called me into His ministry means that I have to give a lot of things up – which I am okay with, I am fine sacrificing, though it’s not really a sacrifice, some things of my former life – but, how do you sacrifice who you are? I guess that is when bearing your cross comes into play … I must take up this cross every day.

I want to be true to myself and true to God at the same time … but, I cannot. I must stay “in the closest” for the sake of the Kingdom. I do not believe that I was born this way nor do I believe it is a choice … why are those the only two possibilities people come up with for someone being gay? I believe that it is like your taste buds … you were not born preferring certain foods and you did not choose to like this food over that food – it came during your developmental stage. Straight people were not born preferring the opposite sex and LGB people were not born wanting to be someone of the same sex; it came later in their life.

I know some of you are thinking to yourselves this boy is going to Hell because he is gay. Where do you get that Biblically? Once you are in the Family of God you cannot be taken out. I mean if someone can lose their salvation because of being gay that means that God’s love is not sufficient and if God cannot keep someone because of sexual orientation that would be anyone can lose their salvation for just about anything. God holds us in His hand and not even Satan can pluck us out! So, I know I am going to Heaven but, I just don’t know what to do any more.

I had this “giant” down for a while but over the past few months it seems as if he has come back stronger than ever and I just cannot seem to take him down. I am at the end of my rope … I’ve tied the knot and I’m holding on – but, I just don’t know how much longer I can hold on!

[saved and know it]

Some suggestions that you might consider...
First, if we know Christ as our Saviour and I'm assuming you do, we need to understand how God views sin. How do I find that out? I find out what sin is what God's thinks and says about sin from His Word. Read Romans 1 particularly verse 18 - 32. Please notice verses 26-27 which deal with homosexuality. Verse 26 talks about lesbians (women changing the natural use into that which is against nature) and verse 27 talks about men (leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lsut one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet - AIDS). Notice in verse 27 the words "burned in their lust one toward another" - the desire came first before the act. You say, "Well naturally the desire came first, that's a given." The point I want you to notice is that sin always begins with a desire. Nip it in the bud. When we have the desire, that is the time to deal with it. I can't stop the birds from flying over my head but I can stop them from building a nest on my head. Understand? I can't stop evil, unclean thoughts from coming into my mind but I can stop them for 'nesting' there. Personally, as one grows in their faith and in fellowship with the Lord, walking with Him moment by moment, we will sin less. I didn't say we become sinless. What I said was we sin....less. There is a difference. The mind is filled with the Word of God and we are living in the power of the Holy Spirit and both of these factors enable us to keep the mind focussed on spiritual things. Of course we will always have the sin principle within and it will always try to manifest itself.
Getting back to Romans 1: 26-27, both of these sins (so rampart today) are an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Go back to Genesis 19 and see what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. He destroyed them with fire. They perished. Let me hasten to say that I'm not accusing you of being a homosexual but I'm pointing out what God's Word has to say about it. Read these passages over and over and over again on your knees and in the presence of God. As you do so, ask God to help you to see this tendency as well as the act (again I'm not saying you have done it) as HE sees it. The Holy Spirit of God within you will empower you to overcome. If your heart is sincere and honest in seeking to overcome, the grace and power of God will give you strength to overcome any thoughts of that nature.

Second, I notice you say that you don't know how much longer you can hold out. You are failing to see that it's not me or you holding onto God but that He is holding us. We are in HIS hands. Submit your body and members of your body to God. Let HIM take control. As one has said, Let go and let God.
Read Romans 6:11-14. Study this chapter prayfully and carefully. It deals with the very core of man's problem. The sin principle.

Third, read your bible daily, carefully and prayerfully. The thoughts that you are struggling with, put them out of your mind. You CAN do it with God's help. Fill you mind with pure thoughts. Everytime a sexually impure thought comes into the mind turn from it. Call upon the name of the Lord. Think on others things. Quote a scripture verse to yourself. Memorize Philippians 4:8 and say it over and over to yourself throughout the day. You see, what you think is what you are!!! Did you get that? What you think on will reflect itself in your character and life. If you or any of us keep thinking unclean thoughts, eventually it will get the best of us. It will come out in all it's ugliness in the acts of immorality. If you want to change the way you are, change your thinking. Romans 12:1-2 "...and be not conformed to this world: but be ye transfomed by the renewing of your mind..."

Fourth, ensure that you are not looking at pornographic material. Sad to say, the internet offers a lot of that and even our emails (spam) lead to such websites. Reading dirty magazines and engaging in dirty talk is not conducive to godly living. Read Ephesian 5:1-13. Read this passage over and over again every day until it imbeds itself into you mind and heart. Notice verse 5 the whoemonger, unclean person, coveteous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. These kind of persons are not christians who fall into sin (an accident) but are people who continually live this way. Their lives are full of this kind of activity and they glory in it. They are not christians at all. They may call themselves christians but the bible says "Let him that nameth the name of the Lord, depart from iniquity."

Lastly, I will pray for you. But let me say this, you MUST and I repeat, you MUST, desire to overcome. As believers we can't be playing with sin in our minds and toying with it and expect that God will somehow, magically deliver us from sinning. When I wanted to be saved I wanted it more than anything else in the world. I was prepared to set everything aside just to know Christ as my Saviour. The same principle goes for living for Christ and overcoming sin. When Christ died on Calvary, He died to sin and so di we. His death has broken the power of sin in the believer's life. We, who are believers, are under no obligation to obey the lust of the flesh. If we sin, we choose to sin. We submit our members (of our body) to commit sin. I realize that I may sound hard in my reply to you but let me say as the Proverbs says, As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man. It simply means that I'm no differeent than you. We all have a wicked heart Jeremiah (17:9). My weakness in character may not be your weakness and vice versa but we all have weaknesses and God has made it possible through Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit to become overcomers. (Revelation 3:21)
Hope this helps. Again, I want to say that some of the things I have written here is for reading in general. I'm not saying that you are guilty of any of it. I'm dealing with the subject of sin (be it whatever it is) in general. We need to be clear about it and to declare what God's Word has to say about it. It speaks to my own heart. We need to exhort one another, seeing the days are evil. Even as I close off now, I am praying for you that God will help you.
YOU CAN OVERCOME!!!
God bless and keep and preserve you for HIS glory. Maranatha (the Lord cometh)

[sunsetssplendor]

All I can do is offer up a prayer for you. I am inexperienced in this area but I do know our God is bigger than any giant you are facing.

[DaniHansen]

I've no Scriptural ground to state that a person who has a strong love for God and struggles with attraction to members of the same sex (or the opposite, for that matter) is judgment-bound.

Besides, "gay" is in the eye of the beholder. Do we use words invented by the world to define ourselves, or do we define ourselves on God's terms?

The bottom line is that we all have desires that pull us away from God and His clear-cut guidelines. Victory isn't in no longer feeling the desires. Victory is in not giving them an outlet. It doesn't matter who you're drawn to, sexual sin is sexual sin.

And so I would make like Timothy, on Paul's advice, and flee it, no matter who you happen to be drawn to. I was abstinent for a number of years, and I was only able to do it because my focus was more on God than my own physical desires, and so He sustained me. Was it easy? No, it was not. Was it worth it? Yes, absolutely.

Be encouraged. You're not alone. There are a lot of threads here (in counseling and other sections) about your exact struggles. I would encourage you to peruse those and see if another person's testimony will ring true with you and speak to you, because we're all tempted and we all have our own struggles, but we're never alone in them, nor are they unique.

Be blessed. :hug:

[TexasBeliever]

You are not alone. Many Christians struggle with "giants."
The scriptures say that drunkards will not enter the kingdom of heaven, so they struggle everyday to not take that first drink.
The scriptures also say that fornicators (sex outside of marriage) will not enter the kingdom of heaven, so there is the struggle to stay chaste.
The scriptures say that the effiminate and abusers of themselves with mankind will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
The scriptures say that adulturers will not enter the kingdom of heaven (extramarital sex).
I've been married a long time. One of the reasons I got married was to put a leash on my sexual desire. I'd be much happier going from man to man, dropping one when I got bored or fed up and moving on to the next. That is MY nature.
But I realize that this life is SO short and eternity is SO long.
I keep the Big Picture before me all of the time. I have learned to discipline myself for the sake of the "joy that is in store for us."

[cheech]

We all have giants we must deal with. We know the truth in our minds but in the heart it's not so easy. That's where our emotions are and that's where the enemy attacks. He attacks both mind and heart. The object is keeping the attack in the mind and pushing it out to keep it from going to your heart. Hard to do I know.

Last night I was reading 2 Chronicles 14 and came upon the part where King Asa was calling out to God before a battle:

"11 Then Asa called to the LORD his God and said, "LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O LORD, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you."

That is how I myself feel at the time when going against my flesh. We know the enemy and his army is the one that sends those tempting thoughts and tries to get us to go back to our old ways. So, seeing what Asa cried out to God, I cry the same thing out at times:

"LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help me, O LORD our God, for I rely on you, and in your name I have come against this vast army. O LORD, you are My God; do not let enemy prevail (succeed) against me (or You and I)."

I changed it a little to meet my situation of course but to me it was an awesome request because the Lord heard it and took out the Cu s h i t es in front of Asa and his army then they went after the Cu s h i t es when they began to run.

Whenever you feel the tempting feelings come on, you must raise your shield and draw your sword immediately. Have some scripture on hand regarding your situation to say out loud and then cast your enemy away. When it's overwhelming, simply call out to God, as Asa did above, and He will come to your rescue. Do not give up or become discouraged. Stand firm and patiently endure the attacks. I'm not even going to admit it's easy because it isn't. It's easy for some to say "just stop thinking about it" :rolleyes:. What I can tell you that works is when I go to the Lord and petition Him for help. He does come to my rescue but as warriors for the Lord He also expects us to put up a fight and gives us the armor and weapons to do so.

Stand firm and trust in God for help. He will rescue you :hug:.

[DaniHansen]

One more thing:

I think "giants" is a matter of perspective.

Remember the spies that went into the promised land and came back with their report?

One side of the coin was "There be giants there. Eeek!" Which brought fear and discouragement. They were defeated before they even started getting serious about claiming their inheritance and were already making excuses and talking themselves out of it, because they were looking at their own abilities and not taking God into account. Which is perfectly human and understandable.

The other side was Joshua who said "There be milk and honey there. We can take the giants because God is with us. Let's go!" Which transcends mere human frailness and calls God on the scene.

Remember Jesus who for the joy set before Him endured the cross. It really all depends on our focus and our perspective. We can obsess over the obstacle, or we can focus on the greatness of God, in the light of which our obstacles tend to shrink and we begin to understand that we can take them, because He who is within us is greater than he who is in the world.

Do you have a joy set before you? What is your promised land? We have to be able to see something beyond the immediate struggle that is worth fighting for, the reason that makes it all worth it, or it becomes too easy to lose hope and give up. I pray you find yours. Perhaps ask God to show you. :hug:

[turtledove]

Moving this to Breaking the Chains in the Counseling Corner where counseling can continue.

[shepherdsword]

I am fine sacrificing, though it’s not really a sacrifice, some things of my former life – but, how do you sacrifice who you are? I guess that is when bearing your cross comes into play … I must take up this cross every day.

I think you answered your own question. I can see from the statement you made above that God IS speaking to you. You just need others to come along and point out that with some clarity. Sometimes in the midst of an attack by the enemy(and that's whats happening to you) we get confused between our soulish desires and what the Spirit is saying to us.
The Spirit tells us to take up our cross and die to self. Death to self is the only way we can experience all Jesus has for us. You have an opportunity,in the midst of this temptation, to honor God by reckoning your flesh dead. Take this to the cross. The cross is the place where Jesus says to us" I give my all for you" and if we truly believe that and love him for it our response will be" Yes ,Lord and I give my all for you"

[turtledove]

I am remembering when the Israelites went in to take the promised land and faced the giants which blocked the way. (See Joshua 14)

We all face some kind of giant who fights to keep us from becoming content with all that God has for us. And victory ahead looks dim because we don't feel confident that we can overcome.

We do not overcome in our own strength..

By the grace and strength of God we can overcome.

We are not all alike. So we face different giants, so to speak. We all have something which the enemy of our soul wants to keep us from becoming all we can be in Christ.

I love the version of the song, Amazing Grace, which is called.."Beyond my Fault.." And I love the words..which say that He (Christ) looked beyond my faults and saw my need. :)

A merciful and compassion God sustains us, heals us, and helps us to know that we can grow in wisdom and strength of purpose, Godly righteousness, and commitment to God.

peace and prayers :pray: