My name is Randy. I am a 55-year-old male. Up until September 28, 2003, I was living a full homosexual lifestyle, and had been for the last 21 years of my life. I had a homosexual partner who died of AIDS on September 25, 2003. That experience brought me face to face with my own mortality as I watched him take his last breath in the hospital. I tested HIV positive in February 2003. Prior to that relationship I had been in another homosexual relationship for 18 years. I was married at one time and have three adult children and two grandchildren.
God convicted my soul that I was a sinner at the young age of 12 during a sermon I intently paid attention to in church one Sunday morning. At that point in my life I prayed to God through Jesus Christ to forgive me for being a sinner, was baptized, and began to experience Jesus as my Lord and Savior. At that time I had never heard anything taught about the sin of homosexual behavior. It was later that I discovered God’s word regarding this sin, but by that time I was already becoming enslaved to its power over my flesh. How I began my journey into homosexuality is not as important as the fact that I have engaged in this behavior for most of my life. I was not born gay, nor is anyone else. But, due to the fallen nature of men and women, i.e. sin in this world we live in, there are a whole bunch of ways one can develop, or be drawn into, this tendency followed by the choice to continue to behave this way sexually even after considering at some later point whether it really is right or wrong.
I have never been able to totally convince myself that being an active homosexual is acceptable in the eyes of God, even though I have tried very hard to do so. Basically, I chose to believe every lie that Satan put before me so I could justify and continue with this wrong and self destructive behavior. Why? Because it felt good to commit this particular sin of the flesh — for the moment — but sexual impurity with the same sex can be likened to getting thirsty over and over and continually having to go back for another drink of water. My lust for sexual impurity was in essence water that does not satisfy the soul. Jesus talks about living water that does satisfy the soul in the book of John, chapter 4, in the New Testament. I know that having a sexual relationship with another man can never be satisfying because I know now that God never meant for it to be. It was simply not in his plan for mankind.
God’s word is very clear on what is sin and homosexual behavior is sin. The world’s way of explaining it away today and the fact the world may becoming more accepting of homosexual lifestyles does not change one thing about God who is the alpha and omega…the beginning and end of all time and creation. Scripture tells us that God’s word holds true for all generations. It is not outdated or obsolete, as some would have us to think. These are the lies of Satan that are becoming more and more accepted by those who do not know God and His truths.
That guilt had been with me all these years. On September 28, 2003 from the sudden death of my partner, the associated grief of his dying, the stark reality of my own mortality hitting me like a ton of bricks from gazing upon his lifeless face, and the sudden and full realization of where I had been and what I had been doing with my life for the past 21 years that was leading me into deeper and deeper despair, darkness, and loss of self control I totally broke down. I was self-destructing and there was not one thing I could do to save myself.
God used every one of those issues to finally bring me full circle. The prodigal son was returning to His creator. I came back to God and asked forgiveness for my sins through His Son, Jesus Christ who died for our sins. God is now granting me the ability — through His perfect love for me and His all powerful grace – to repent of those sins…or, in other words, stop the sinful behavioral pattern. True forgiveness is followed by repentance. Did you catch that? I cannot repent on my own. God grants to us the ability to repent by pouring out His mercy, grace, and Holy Spirit to live within us and empower us to be repentant.
At that time I immediately stopped my homosexual behavior including the physical, the fantasies, and viewing pornography. I prayed to God and laid my life at the feet of Jesus Christ every day in order to regain the joy and peace I once knew many years ago. The darkness that my body, soul, and spirit were experiencing at ever increasing degrees was suddenly beginning to lift as the light of God’s truth began to once again flood my soul and drive out the darkness. Sin will eventually destroy our flesh and if not dealt with, will destroy us for eternity as well.
I have found a church home in which I can worship God, find fellowship with fellow believers, and the needed support and accountability I need. As Psalm 51:10-12
says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” (NIV)
I strive to give each new day to Jesus as my Lord and Savior and trust in His loving grace and Holy Spirit to strengthen, guide, and heal my brokenness. Remember, we are all sinners. I am not perfect at this but it is the path I want to take in order to bring the right kind of change to my life. Anyone who preaches that God hates homosexuals is a false prophet and not speaking God’s truths. God loves all sinners but cannot, and will not, tolerate the sin. We separate ourselves from God with our choices to live in sin. He created in us the ability to choose Him or to not choose Him.
He has made a way however for us to regain our relationship with Him and that is through the death, burial, and RESURRECTION of Jesus Christ. Yes, God loves us so much He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, God incarnate, to walk among us and
then die on the cross to bear the sins of all mankind. Just think about that! We cannot save ourselves. No way! No how! It is our faith in Christ and seeking God’s forgiveness for all our sins, no matter what they are, through the shed blood of Jesus that brings God’s forgiveness for our sinning against Him. Jesus paid, in full, the price for me and all of us. We just have to believe in Him as John 3:16-18 states. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (NIV)
I have never had such a personal love for God in my entire life as I do now, for I fully realize how much he loves me…perfectly. If I sin again, and I have due to my choice to be disobedient and serve the desires of the flesh and this world instead of depending on His divine grace and following His truths through obedience, God is still faithful to Himself and sure to forgive me for those sins when I come before Him through Jesus to seek forgiveness. Again, sin brings separation from walking with God and my true experience of joy and fulfillment; thus, the darkness returns and the light goes away. By and through His healing grace and mercy I am learning to develop and strengthen my relationship with Him and to distance myself from my old sinful behavioral patterns.
I want freedom from the grip of Satan; the power to live a Christ like life; the ability to glorify God in whatever way he would have me to; and the assurance that when my journey here in this world comes to an end in physical death I will forever be with God in heaven and know perfect love and happiness for eternity.
My goal is not to become heterosexual, although that can happen and does with many former practicing homosexuals, but to become more like Christ and stop the homosexual behavior all together.
So can you, my friend.
Jesus said, “…I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). (NIV)