Grace and Truth

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“Everyone’s story is different.” That’s how Rachel began hers. “I grew up wishing I was a man.” She went on to share a memory from her early childhood when she…

I am not going to finish the story.

I am not going to finish it because I want you to be able to do that if you need to.

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Day Twenty-Nine 

By the way, Rachel grew up in a Christian home. She knew God loved her. She knew He’d made her. She just felt like a boy trapped in a girl’s body. She played with boys and had very few friendships with girls… As time moved on, she grew into a young adult- and discovered that sex is emotional. “It was very easy for me to manipulate friendships with women who would become emotionally dependent,” admits Rachel. “Women who have never had a same-sex attraction would allow themselves to become physically intimate with me because I fed that emotional attachment so much.”

All the while, Rachel made her way through youth group and graduated from a Christian college…

No one knew.

All the while she knew her feelings were not right.

All the while she wondered why God would not make her feelings go away if they were wrong.

All the while she kept silent about her struggle. She let no one in her church know about her struggle… She didn’t want to say it out loud.

Silence didn’t help.

Finally she mustered up the courage to talk to her Pastor’s wifeand now Rachel is walking in freedom and has moved beyond her struggle with same-sex attraction and is being used by God to help others with theirs.

Are you a Rachel?

Let me share some news that might shock you. I have served in the area of children and youth ministry since the Lord called me to be wholly surrendered, during one of these times of ministry I was talking with a group of jr high age girls… this was a group, not just a few, every single one of these girls broke out in nervous laughter of agreeance that they had already struggled, or at least wondered, if they were a lesbian.

This is real. 

Do the young women (and men) around you have the freedom to come and share their struggle in homosexuality with you and not be condemned… or maybe you are reading this and you are someone like Rachel who needs to let the Light into your dark silence?

Rachel says that when she starts working with a teen who is struggling, she refuses to let her use labels. Don’t let the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transsexual movement slap a label on you. And don’t let Christians who judge your struggle to be more scandalous than theirs label you as somehow less precious in God’s eyes.

You are not gay. You are a daughter of Christ. Struggling with same-sex attraction is a symptom of life lived in a fallen world. Stop labeling yourself.

It has been my experience that when someone struggles with homosexuality it can come down to two main things.

1) You are a Rachel… something happened in your early childhood to plant a “lie seed”. Maybe it was as simple as being picked on for being “eewwww a girl”, maybe it was a sexual molestation by a trusted friend or family member, maybe it was being exposed to pornography and your sexual awakening happened in the oh so wrong way. It doesn’t matter what “lie seed” was planted… but you never told anyone about it… so the Enemy of your soul has spent years and years watering it for you and he’s been feeding it and it’s been growing inside of you in the dark and now it is choking out your light and your hope and the truth that you once could at least see a little bit of…

2) Or may be it’s the Lie we talked about on Day Sixteen. Maybe you just are drawn to a person because they catch your attention and the lies you have grown up with have convinced you that when someone gets your attention and now has your affection… then you must want to have sex with them… and once again you never told anyone about this thought, this feeling, this lie… so it grows inside you…

Ladies, do you remember Day Sixteen: Getting to the Heart of the Matter:

Now in attraction you become familiar enough with the person to know you are drawn to him, but you are not yet familiar enough to act affectionately toward that person.

Both attention and attraction are not limited to men but include a wide variety of things: the kind of clothes we like, the style of house we prefer, and the type of food we crave.

When you go to church or business meetings, you probably are drawn to certain individuals but not to others. The woman who became your friend is probably someone you run to when you need a hug or have really good news to share.

Society has twisted our minds into thinking that if we are drawn to someone, we must want to have sex with them. But attraction isn’t necessarily sexual. 

(Personally I believe this lie and twisting of attention and attraction and affection is one of the tools that the enemy has used to convince many that they must be homosexual or bisexual to feel the way they do. We will discuss this in more depth later in the challenge)

When we find ourselves attracted to someone we then begin to move into showing that person affection. 

And ladies do not forget what we have learned about our God given desire for yada.

Could it be that maybe the struggle in lesbianism for some is just that their heart has been broken over and over and they just want to be known and understood and this other girl does because she has really been there, she knows how you feel, how you think, what you mean… 

So instead of choosing to believe the truth and trust God to heal your heart and wait on Him you seek shelter in her “understanding” arms instead of His?  

Maybe you never meant or intended it to become a sexual relationship, but it has and now you don’t know how to walk away, you feel trapped because you are on this road and you don’t know how to get off, and you’re scared of what you will go through, what others will say about you, if you do.

Then please do not ever forget the truth to see you through the temptation that we learned on Day Seventeen: Aroused Attached Addicted

Finally, seek a trusted friend or counselor to hold you accountable through this season of temptation. If you know you are going to have to answer to someone else- whether it is your husband, a friend, or a counselor- about your thoughts, words, and actions, you’ll try harder to limit them to things you wouldn’t be embarrassed to admit. Getting real and honest with yourself and with someone who can keep you from falling into the pit of compromise is the best lifeline available.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another,

and pray for one another so that you may be healed.

The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

James 5:16

My experience has been that if you starve your desire to be emotionally intimate with a man, it eventually dies. The more you control your appetite for forbidden fruit, the more dignity and satisfaction you will feel about yourself and your ability to be a woman of sexual and emotional integrity.

I truly believe if you starve  your desire to be emotionally and sexually intimate with a female and (and is the key word here) and share your struggle with a trusted friend or counselor and flood your soul with the Word of God… you will have victory in this struggle as much as any other you face…

This is not the one sin in Scripture that God refuses to help you with, it is not the sin of eternal damnation nor is it the I was just made this way sin so it must be okay.

It is a battle between good and evil that is raging in your mind, heart, and soul… but in Christ you have been given the victory… but you gotta fight. Stop believing the lie and come at the father of lies with the Sword of Truth and cut his head off so he will shut his lying mouth and his lies will not progress within you and control you.

Dannah shares in her book the progression of a lie:

1) We listen to a lie. We frequently get close to messages that are contrary to God’s truth.

2) We dwell on a lie. We converse about those lies and consider deeply and regularly what is said without dwelling on truth or asking the advice of others who know God’s truth.

3) We believe a lie. We believe that the lie is more trustworthy than what God says in His Word.

4) We act on the lie. We sin.

You see, the patterns, behaviors, and addictions we struggle with are often the fruit of a lie that took root years ago.

Oh ladies, get this book, and read it, and share it with the women in your life. The truths that Dannah shares in her book What Are You Waiting For are eye opening and life changing because she shares God’s truth in love.

Your challenge today: maybe you struggle with this… maybe you know someone who does. Let me share with you that Rachel was able to be set free from her same sex attraction because the woman she went to for help did not condemn her. She did not pick up a Bible and hit her over the head with all the Scriptures that God shares with us about how homosexuality is an abomination… Rachel knew all of those… she grew up with them and God had already placed the law in her heart…

Rachel needed grace.

The woman Rachel sought help from did not condemn her with the Word, but at the same time she did not tell Rachel that she could just keep on living that way and God would be just fine with it. She met Rachel were she was and she chose to love her with grace and truth and strengthen her with grace and truth and guide her with grace and truth.

For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.

For the Law was given through Moses;

grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

John 1:16-17

Your challenge… if you need that woman go find her today. She is out there. Or ladies, if you don’t need that woman today… then be that woman to someone who does.

 

Comments

2 thoughts on “Grace and Truth”

  1. I just had a conversation with a close friend who left her husband and revealed to me that she is gay. She knows where I stand on the issue. My own mother actually inserted herself into the lesbian lifestyle when I was a child, the worst years of my life. Like the counselor Rachel went to, I tried to extend love and grace but didn’t compromise the truth of the Gospel. I pray that she will be set free. This was a timely and unexpected message for me today. Thank you.

  2. Just keep loving her with grace and truth and bringing her before the throne of grace… it is your kindness that will bring her to repentance and it is your prayers that God will use to change her heart… keep standing in the gap, but remain firm lest your kindness be seen as acceptance. My prayers are with you… it is not an accident that God allowed her to choose you to open up to.

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