God Loves Freaks Like Me
Eric has another post today, which you can read by clicking on the title above.
Here is my commentary on his post. You can read it here, or over on Eric's blog.
There are a lot of interesting things to think about in this post. Perhaps the most obvious is that you feel insecure. Now I am not saying you are unusual in that, we all feel inscure, some of us allt he time, some of us part of the time, and some of us occasionally. It is also clear that you have a good intelectual understanding of the grace of God. That is good. God's grace does cover all sin, and it also covers every other aspect of who we are. I think the challenge for you, me and every other Christian out there is that we have trouble believing that we have a good heart and that we are fully justified in Christ, when we see ourselves both sinning, and being tempted to sin. There are a couple of points here. First, it is very important to understand that temptation is not sin. When you have feelings that desire to lead you into sin, that is not sin, that is satan trying to get you to sin. So right up front, deny the temptation. Now I am not saying that this is easy, I have my own issues to deal with, with respect to temptation, but the truth is we must deny the lie that we want the temptation, and then immediately look to Christ for the power to resist. As you no doubt know, you can't resist temptation on your own, that can only be done through Jesus' power. Second, we need to come to a full understanding both in our mind and in our heart that we are good. Having accepted Jesus as my saviour, my heart is good. REALLY! I know that temptation and sin make me want to think I am not good, but the war I fight, or more accurrately that Jesus fights for me is spiritual, and being fought by the only One who can and will win. Finally, I believe you need to stop thinking of yourself as a gay man. Now I am not syaing you are not gay, what I am saying is that you need to think of yourself as who you really are, a Christian who has a personal relationship with the one and only God of the universe. A God who made you the way you are, but who loves you too much to leave you or me the way we are. I praise God for a Saviour that not only cares for us but has the power to heal all our hurts, and who WILL!