Last updated on September 17, 2020
Question:
What if it’s too late? What if I am already gay? It makes me feel like I want to be gay when I don’t. Everything has changed. I used to be homophobic, and say proudly that I was straight. I can’t do that anymore. You know, I think my blood pressure is through the roof from all this stress. And the more time goes by, I feel more gay, and it’s not a good thing. Nothing works, I only want a Christian solution to all of this. Could you give me something in the Bible that is encouraging, saying that God will help me through this? I think I need His words on this right now.
Answer
It isn’t that I haven’t been showing you and others what God has said on this matter, but if a person is determined not to accept God’s Word, I can’t force you to accept it. But let’s go through this one more time.
Being a homosexual means you are having sex with another male. This isn’t what you are dealing with. Therefore you are not already a homosexual because you haven’t been involved in homosexual acts. This is no different than fornication. It doesn’t directly matter how strongly you desire to have sex with a female, you haven’t committed fornication until you start having sex without being married to the other person.
What you are dealing with is temptation. Usually, Satan finds ways to draw us into sin by offering things we badly want but suggesting that the only way to get it is by breaking a law of God. In your case, Satan has found a backward way of tempting you by playing on your fears. He is tempting you with the idea of homosexuality, knowing that your fear of it keeps it foremost in your mind. Every little response that you can construe to be a homosexual thought just further confirms your fear, trapping you in a cycle of your own making.
“No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (I Corinthians 10:13).
There is no temptation that you face to which you cannot say “no.” If you give in to this temptation, it will only be because you decided to have sex with another male. No one will make you do it. Not even Satan can make you. But God won’t stop you from choosing to sin if you are determined to sin. “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself” (Ezekiel 18:20).
Basically, you are dealing with irrational fear. The way to deal with an irrational thought is to bring it out into the open. Say out loud what you are tempted to do, and then state what is the rational thing to do about the temptation. If you choose to reject what you know is sinful, then God will help you. “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up” (James 4:7-10). You can submit to God for no other reason than the simple fact that it is the right thing to do — regardless of how you feel at the moment. It doesn’t matter if you get an erection seeing a sexy looking guy if you decide that God’s way is best and that you aren’t going to have sex with another man.
You have to decide to control yourself. A part of the problem is that you are remaining double-minded about this issue. You know what is right, but you are letting your emotions rule your decisions — at least partly. “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (I Corinthian 9:24-27).