Voices We Need to Hear

According to Exodus International there is a 30-50% success rate.
http://exodus.to/content/view/43/87/
Troubling topic because I do not see any difference between the sin of the homosexual lifestyle choices that have affected some of my extended family and the sin of the heterosexual free sex "whenever, wherever I want lifestyle" choices of others.
Both leave behind a hurting family members, confusion and distress.

Sin is sin and it hurts others a lot. It is difficult to be loving and accepting and inclusive when one has been personally injured over and over with those choices.

It sounds fine to sit back and intellectually say "let's be nice" and I can do that with the man at our church whose choices for homosexual behavior made the local headlines recently in relation to a murder. He had had a 20 year affair with the deceased. He is a nice guy. He is polite, he was discrete - not announcing and making sure everyone knew ... but his choices have not touched me and my loved ones. His choices have not left people I love hurting, confused and distressed.

That is where the real rubber meets the road - forgiving those who hurt us blatantly. And having to forgive and forgive and forgive.
The homosexual lifestyle - openly lived as it is in this generation - is like any other sin where a person flagrantly defies established rules of conduct and then expects others to simply accept that.

Approaching this discussion with the basis that homosexual actions are a sin, just as adultery and fornication ...
Compare that with the sins of murder, and telling lies and stealing. (I have family members who are compulsive liars as well.)

How many Youtube videos discuss a person's habit of lying and tendency to choose a lie rather than the truth ... their struggle with the sin for years and years and then finally simply accepting it and going around to others and saying, "Look I am coming out of the closet. I have stolen from you 100s of times. And I am going to continue to do that. I love you, but I will continue to steal from you. It is the way I am made. I have sought help and nothing works, So I am going to embrace it and expect you to accept me this way."

Or substitute lying or murder or any other sin.


How do we or should we react when one with this kind of besetting sin says, "I want to quit this behavior."

In the end any sinful behavior needs to be addressed. The sinner welcomed for his confession of sin, but not let off the hook easily - but held accountable. The man in the video gave up in his quest. Sin is ALWAYS easier to just say, "that is the way that I am, you must accept that" rather than. "This is how I am, I am working on it., I have been working on it, but often I get stuck in Romans 7 and do not get on to Romans 8."

There are PLENTY of days when I just want to say, "Can't you just accept this is me?" and quit seeking God's help, quit talking with my accountability partner about the behavior I know God wants me to change?

Just because there are abysmal recovery rates for alcoholics and drug abusers we do not say quit trying. The one whom I love that is struggling with drug abuse now for over 20 years may be heading for Teen Challenge. Their success rate is higher than state run programs, but not 100%.
If he falls, we continue to encourage him to get up and try again. Isn't that the way of the righteous to fall 7 times and to get up every time?

For those I love and myself, I cling to I Cor. 6 esp. vs. 11 and 12.
That is the whole point of Christ's death ... He frees us from the penalty and sends the Holy Spirit to empower us to walk His way.

Peter was changed with the Holy Spirt, he received a vision of the unclean animals and yet in later years he fell back into his old Jewish ways of separating clean and unclean. But Paul did not let him off the hook ... he held him accountable.

Because my life is personally touched so much by this issue, I could write forever, but I will stop for now.