In 2009, the Holy Spirit convicted my heart that I needed an intimate relationship with my Creator, instead of indulgent intimacy with my flesh and LGBT+ culture. It was the most humbling experience of my life.
I had been following what I thought was “natural” to me. After the dead end roads I chose to pursue, God revealed to me that it is sin that comes natural to all of us. And it was sin that had separated me from God. We’re not naturally inclined to do God’s will. We are quite self-focused (Jeremiah 17:9).
Since childhood, I had struggled with “Same-Sex Attraction,” my love for Jesus and trying to figure out my predicament. My Adventist faith and the Bible were very clear to point out homosexual behavior as sinful. However, trusted solutions were noticeably absent.
What was God asking of me? No one in the Church was addressing that question.
We were all pretty much in the thick of living the “checklist Christian” life. My parents were richly connected with Christ and did all they knew in an effort to personalize Jesus. However, my “feelings” were strong and very real. At eighteen, I gave up the fight against my flesh. Another guy, who now identified as gay, revealed the shortcomings of the church to me, and I quickly left God and the church for the LGBT+ community.
Eventually, I wrote my church and asked for my membership to be removed. I certainly wasn’t making an effort to live for Jesus.
Forty years would rob me of certainty and security in Jesus. The LGBT+ culture did all but absorb every breath out of my body. Staying alive, most certainly resulted from the continued prayers of my parents.
One day, as I sat contemplating my destiny, I did a Google search for “Adventist” and “Gay,” in hopes that I would discover a church-based outreach to people such as myself. To my astonishment, there were none. Really? In this postmodern world the church is still at a loss for helping me?
LGBT+ rights gradually advanced through the introduction of the “sexual revolution.” Laws were being passed left and right ushering in homosexuality to be as commonplace as heterosexuality. The church seemed well on its way to dismissing any theological position that same-sex and other LGBT+ ideations fall dangerously short of God’s will.
Does the emotional battle of thousands of young lives caught in this tug of war between Christianity and sensuality matter to anyone? For many, their intense “feelings” are shaping their identity. Why did the church remain mute? And when the topic surfaces, how is it that there is now a positioning or “posturing” leaning toward acceptance, tolerance and affirmation of behaviors that grieve Jesus? Where did we do a scriptural 180?
Are we wandering about like the Israelites, building our own golden calf and calling for a leader, a president or king that is more in line with our fleshly cravings, adopting social norms, instead of learning how to walk humbly with God, denying ourselves for Him? What happened to Adventists, the keepers of the Word? Do we trust Jesus? Didn’t God provide us relative truth and instruction for all time? He knows the beginning from the end.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Revelation 22:13.
Now you may be extremely intelligent. A doctor, pastor, teacher, scientist, etc. And so, taking advantage of your intelligence and your belief in Christ, allow me to ask this. If being LGBT+ were honorable to God, would it be fair for Him not to provide honorable instruction just as He has for relationships between a man and a woman? Loving everyone of us as He does, why would He only give instruction to some?
But God is fair and trustworthy. It’s Satan who is a liar.
We’ve all witnessed surviving victims of Brest Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, etc. become spokespersons in advocacy of support, research and cures. Passions run deep when something personally invades your life without invitation. God’s love and clarity have provided me that.
Have we forgotten the “Great Controversy?” Eternal life is at stake. There isn’t one life that Satan is willing to let go of.
Dear brothers and sisters, from the beginning God only intends the very best for you and me. Indeed, He loves us unwaveringly. However, let’s not overlook the fact that there are conditions for heaven.
How is it that we have come to a place of acceptance and affirmation when God offers restoration, reconciliation, and redemption? How is it that we’re quick to evangelize about seven headed and ten horned beasts with the special light God has provided, yet fail to demonstrate practical Christianity encouraging one another to let go of sin and sinful appetites?
Let’s walk together in restoration through Jesus. Romans 15:5.
Biblical intelligence doesn’t secure a place in heaven. Only the continued surrender of our will.
Dear brother and sisters in Christ, may I share that homosexuality and the reality of LGBT+ militant activism has come in like a thief as you sleep? We are willingly silent in nearly every Adventist institution of teaching. That’s troubling. Pray for an awakening! Why are we hiding and denying God’s truth?
“Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due” (Romans 1:27).
I’ve grown tired of the popular use of the term “Clobber texts.” Those texts weren’t meant to clobber, they were meant to provide a measure of safety in Jesus Christ. These texts are in His Word to guard and protect us. The enemy is laying traps with an orchestrated introduction of counterfeits.
I could never have imagined my return to Jesus in the Adventist church would be met with complacency and the exchange of truth for lies. But we are wholly in the midst of promoted lies from the prince of darkness. A shaking that doesn’t seem to be alerting many to the aching, breaking heart of Jesus. Don’t we care about the eternal destiny of those in this fight? Or will we split as many denominations gone before us, touting not only approval of sinful practices, but celebrating in the glory of “pride” in the process.
Every young person and every campus are plagued with the life experiences of those who are “naturally” drawn to members of their own sex. However, the enemy has taken it further. Satan’s counterfeits are alluring. He mimics all that honors Christ and switches it to self-gratification and glorification. There is no glorification of God under this self-deceiving ruse.
Satan gloats in our silence as he wins more candidates who advocate for that which God defines as an abomination. Turning and twisting scripture is now popularized with “Queer Theology.”
Shake and wake. I can’t be clearer. Dear friends, God somehow preserved and rescued me and my fellow colleagues. Having been there, we are watchmen on the wall. “New Creatures” haven’t surfaced in Adventism alone, but throughout Christianity. Far more are waking up in other denominations. Today there is a huge movement departing the LGBT+ culture for Jesus. As His commissioned disciples, I think we have failed His commission. But praise God, He personally finds an avenue to reach the hearts of those who would respond. I’m reminded of the verse that says the last will be first (Matthew 20:16).
If you feel helpless and don’t know how to address this crisis, engage with ministries like Know His Love Ministries and ‘Coming Out’ Ministries. Their teachings are directly from Scripture. The focus in on developing intimacy with Jesus, falling in love with Him, surrendering our will and learning to live to please and honor Jesus. Not to fulfill the passions and natural self-inclinations.
As teachers, I urge you to take courage in Christ, believing and teaching His ways. Unite with Jesus and His call on our lives to truly know and understand that His ways are far more beneficial than ANY human logic or reasoning. Let His Word prevail. You may not always be popular, but you will be eternally appreciated and rewarded by King Jesus.
I opened my recent copy of our union paper, the whole issue devoted to education. There is a list of all the academies and teaching institutions in the Union. I began to look them over and recognized a number of them I have been told I will never speak to. The message of hope, restoration and reconciliation is not welcome. Instead, today’s focus is not on an identity in Jesus with a salvational message, but on protecting and advocating for one’s “sexual orientation,” and “sexual identity. Sensuality, not holiness.
Instead of upholding relational, life-sustaining Scripture, we allow “gay/straight” alliances to overpower Scripture and call for “Social Justice.” Where is our faith in God? I look at the names of all these schools and think of the thousands that are either suffering from, or invited to experience diversions of sexuality before making their minds up as to how they will identify sexually. Most of them likely are not aware that Jesus has an alternate, more trusted way.
How is it that we are not reaching out to compromised, valuable lives, offering to engage them with a trusting, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ? I look at the slogans and mottos printed on these pages and wonder… Do they really come in touch with the “love in truth” message of Jesus on all these campuses?
One school principal said they will leave the work up to the Holy Spirit. They will do nothing. Don’t they recognize God’s commission of leadership?
The direct quotes I could share from some of the employed professors and teachers would turn some of your stomachs. Advisers and teachers who contest that God is okay with however you identify sexually. Perhaps it’s because the educators have not witnessed the application of God’s salvational promises and the identity He offers ALL of us as a “New Creation” in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17). Sometimes a person’s testimony is more heavily weighted than book knowledge. God uses hearts aligned with Him to touch other hearts.
We are going to be fighting temptations and attractions until Jesus comes. So why aren’t we putting the tools of spiritual warfare in the hands of those who desperately need them? While we have seven “gay/straight” alliances on our Adventist campuses, there isn’t one with a Christ-centered, prayerful support group for those with unwanted LGBT+ ideations. How is that possible?
Only a deep life-sustaining relationship with Jesus will see us through. We must teach and demonstrate love, compassion, and forgiveness. We are all in need of coming to Him meekly and drinking from His trusted foundation of truth. Life on this earth is brief. Don’t let it end here.
God’s gifted us with a messenger during this final crisis. She wrote; “All schools among us will soon be closed up” (Testimonies 5, page 156). She is making a plea to those who can have the means to provide funding for a Christ-focused education.
Have we compromised our courses of study, placing a bridle in the mouths of those who would share God’s much needed “love in truth” messages? Are our campuses tainted with federal funding, which we were advised against—making it nearly impossible to share God’s “love in truth” message?
Will the blood of the lives who could have been won for Christ be upon those who refused to offer His rescuing hand?
You can offer teachings and skills that will fit a person in their career path. But if you fail to offer God’s life instructions that shape our character for His kingdom, what have you gained? Have you not only placed a student’s life in jeopardy, but your own as well?
Are parents getting what they’re paying for?
Oh what many of us would have given, if a ministry that offered the rescue of Jesus had been available to us.
After retiring from ‘Coming Out’ Ministries last fall, I remain passionate with a Christ-centered, redemptive focus. I am currently finishing a book I began five years ago, and still writing the occasional article. God bless!
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P.S. In 2018 the NAD Commission on Human Sexuality released a “guide” called, “Guiding Families of LGBT+ Loved Ones.” Early this fall, watch for the release of my book, “Line by Line, A Biblical Analysis of Guiding Families of LGBT+ Loved Ones.”
Visit Know His Love Ministries and ‘Coming Out’ Ministries to engage with messages and resources that point to victory, hope, love and compassion through Jesus.
www.KnowHisLove.org, www.ComingOutMinistries.org