Blog Author's Story

This testimony was the reason I was banned from christianblog.com.

There is one regret I think will follow me into eternity, and that is allowing the Church to take from me my walk with God; years lost forever. Through willful ignorance and maybe something more, Bible translators, knowing full well the questionable use of wording, went ahead full force with the most damnable meaning to do the most harm. Also hard to grasp are the leaders then and now in the Church that neither want nor care to reconcile with the Bible, Scripture that from the surface seems exclusionary and heartless.

I made a conscious decision to turn from God. I was reading Romans 1 in my room one night as a boy and I was seeing Jesus disappear before my very eyes. The creature that was described wasn’t me, but here’s the Word of God telling me that this was my lot in life given to me over feelings I had no choice over. I hated God because I thought he hated me first and bad Christian behavior in my church solidified it. I grew to become an angry defensive man wanting nothing to do with God. Though my belief in him did not go away, He was something to ignore. I lived my life, and it worked for a while, but life didn’t make sense and the few things in it that did would later feel empty and pointless. I was self-absorbed and blaming God, a ghost watching life from the outside in, not really living, wanting some end from whatever THIS was.

The Bible says even though we are faithless God remains faithful (2 Timothy 2:13). I was about to see those words play out.

I became friends with the gay son of a co-worker and our friendship grew over the weeks. I found out he had a religious upbringing that was the same as mine. Like myself, he lost his faith because of the words in Romans. Weeks turned to months and I fell in love with him and he with me. As the years went by, we would talk about the Bible, but only after drinks that ended in drunken arguments. Oddly, I found myself defending the Bible. A lot of what he was talking about came from hurt, so I would downplay the condemnation of us with Scripture I knew. These verses, and many others I knew because I was still Bible smart, stayed with me in the morning.

I never knew that God was using my own arguments to work into my heart, telling me what He always wanted me to hear, with me as the instrument. In trying to heal this man’s hurt, God was healing my own. God waited patiently, holding me in His perfect course, working according to His own timing to bring me to a place of understanding and I came back to my walk of faith one night after pleading my case before the Lord in a dark room on a long night (Isaiah 41:21). That co-worker became my husband. Some scars take longer to heal for others.

During all this, I knew my homosexuality was neither a good thing nor bad; it simply existed. This unnecessary war over it was of my own making with the church playing no small part in putting me in this war they said I needed to fight. Like with a heterosexual drive and desire; I can either dedicate and honor my God with it, or abuse it and realize I will answer for that abuse. The Apostle Paul said we are a follower of his Savior, not of him (1 Corinthians 1:13). But his words were the only words that brought offense to the homosexual in his letters. Was Paul a hindrance to their faith after saying he wouldn’t be (2 Corinthians 6:3)? Or were his words being twisted, again (2 Peter 3:16)?

I went to scripture again and was willing to accept whatever I saw and not what others told me to see. I hunted down what context these scriptures were put, in what settings these translations formed, and by what intent and how they evolved; including why and for whom the Biblical passages were written. What I found brought perfect harmony between what Paul wrote and the rest of his words inspired and spoken by love called the Bible with what I can only describe as a Holy and radical understanding only the Holy Spirit can bring and what was a call to ministry only He could give.

Some have come to a different conclusion. All I can say is this. Love found me and love gave me my answer. Nothing is by chance. If I am wrong, I would rather make a great error on the side of mercy and not of judgment. I would rather extend His love too far than not far enough. Others will say that I’m being deceived, but a house divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3:22-30). Satan will not go against himself to bring a false inclusion with the Word if it brings salvation. He uses roadblocks, not inroads into Salvation.

We all have to work out our own salvation. It’s a work only we can do through nothing short of fear, tears, and trembling (Philippians 2:12). My sexuality didn’t change, I did.

Let me emphasize, and I can't say this enough: OBEDIENCE TO THE WORD OF GOD IS FIRST AND FOREMOST above any personal revelation, feeling, or what seems right unto a man. All the more reason we need to understand exactly what the Word says so we can make a “Just Judgment” (John 7:24). 

Jesus told the Sadducees they made a mistake in their long-held understanding of scripture (Mark 12:24-27). The book of Acts talks of the Berean Church which was more open-minded than other churches, yet would only accept what was told them if it lined up with the inspired Word. MAKE the Church of God follow that example. Now is the time to look at the prejudice of uninspired men in the Body of Christ and move away from this stubbornness with not wanting to let it go that God equates with idolatry (1 Samuel 15:23) that was always a Tradition of Men and not of God. Excluding gays from fellowship never sat well in the collective conscience of true Believers, but they violated their conscience because they believed they were following Scripture. Paul said this is like a shipwreck (1 Timothy 1:19).

Tradition, once we’ve made it a part of biblical belief, is the hardest thing to cast away; but until the Body of Christ leaves its sacrifice at the altar (Matthew 5:23,24) and goes asking for forgiveness for the pain it’s caused so many for so long, its gifts will never be acceptable to God and the winds of revival they seek will never come.

The Holy Spirit started a work in me that continues every day and why I write this now. 

For you.

Like the disciple Peter walking on water, I have to always be seeing Jesus or I start to sink into the dark depths. But even then, weak and tired, His hand reaches down, lifts me up, and says that I am His.