Knowing the Holy Spirit is present and active when you share your stories, compassion, and the truth, can reduce any stress or fear you have.  This no longer is about what you can do.  Realizing the Holy Spirit is active allows you to step back and allow Him to move.  Sharing on the Day of Truth then becomes what the Holy Spirit can do in and through you.  You don’t have to change people.  You can trust the Lord to use the message of truth you share to impact your peers in His way and in His time.

There’s a familiar saying that I think is important to remember:  You must catch the fish first before you can clean it.  So many people think that homosexuals have to change before they step foot into church – Jesus never demonstrated that.  He never demanded the broken to change before coming to Him.  He knew their need – it was Christ, himself.  He invited them to come to Him and through that interaction He propelled change in their lives. That’s the way it is with our gay friends!  We bring them to Jesus, and then He sets the work of transformation in their lives in His own timing.

Our duty is to meet them right where they are, walk with them, and encourage them.  We can’t be the Holy Spirit in their lives.  But we can be friends who speak truth in love and trust Christ to do the healing work.  He’s the only one who can.  Believing the power of the Holy Spirit will greatly impact how you relate.  Knowing you don’t have to do it all on your own provides a huge relief.  You can allow the Holy Spirit to work and you will begin to see that He isn’t only changing your friend’s life, but you too are being changed in the process.

You’ll find that you aren’t the only one to be an impact in your friend’s life.  When I was in the early stages of walking free from a homosexual identity I didn’t think I could offer anything.  People could pour into me, but there wasn’t anything in me to pour out into others.  But as relationships grew and strengthened I found that my friend was being poured into as well.  We were both being blessed and changed through our friendship.  One friend even began to share his struggles more openly with another friend and me because I had been so vulnerable with my struggle with homosexuality.  So be open and willing to receive whatever the Lord has for you through any relationships that may come about.

We are all on a journey.  Some of us are just a few steps ahead of others.  Some actually have a heading, while others are still lost and wandering with no direction.  We, as Christians, have direction and we are to find the wanderers and point them to our heading – Christ. No matter if we are maturing Christians, new Christians, or ones that have not yet found Christ, God has some growing to do in all of us.  He’ll begin to transform your struggling, gay-identified friend, but don’t miss out on the change He wants to do in your life too!

For those who are just starting to look at a journey out of homosexuality, we are often thinking in terms of attraction when we ask about change. Will we always feel our same-sex attractions (SSA) so strongly? Will we ever have opposite-sex attractions (OSA) to a satisfying degree?

These two questions have lots of smaller questions swimming around in them-and those are somewhat different from person to person. Here’s what I think we all, on some level, are afraid of-and how God has helped me through these fears.

Big Fear #1: My Same-Sex Attractions Will Never Go Away

SSA distresses us, and there is no small reason why. It gets in the way of the relationships we want to have-both the same and opposite sex. There also may be a degree of shame we seem to automatically feel about them, especially those of us who grew up in a church atmosphere. Most importantly, they pull us away from the life we believe God has called us to lead.

There are bigger issues at work

The first thing we need to realize about SSA is that it’s not just about attractions. There is so much more going on than just what “floats your boat.” Beyond the physical, powerful emotional needs and identity issues are at work. Even the American Psychological Association recognizes this:

“Most scientists today agree that sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors.”
- “Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality,” APA.org

You probably know that already; most likely, you were aware of the deep longing inside you way before you ever had your first same-sex attraction that was actually sexual or romantic.

Your SSA is just the tip of the iceberg-it’s the part that’s most visible to you. But what makes it such a big deal is all the underlying stuff that’s not so apparent. That’s what makes that chunk of ice so rock steady when we run into it.

The hard thing about that is that we might have to battle those stubborn attractions for some time. If we want to succeed, we have to reorder our priorities so they are more like God’s. We want our attractions to change-and quickly-so we can stop feeling this pain and experience what we think is a normal life. God, on the other hand, wants us to participate in a lifelong redeeming work that is not only for our healing (on so many more levels than sexuality), but is ultimately for bringing Him glory and for calling others into His Kingdom. That’s a tall order-a lot taller than the tip of your iceberg.

Change doesn’t have to be all or nothing

We’re not really afraid that SSA will never go away-we’re afraid that we’ll be forever tormented by this desire that we can’t seem to satisfy, and our relationships will suffer as a result. We’re afraid we’ll be doomed to feel ‘different’ for the rest of our lives.

The world has the wrong idea that if you want to think of yourself as ‘changed,’ you must experience 100% transformation of all attractions or nothing else. If you still experience any SSA, that means you are still gay-or at least bisexual-and you can only be happy by embracing that identity and all the behaviors and beliefs that go along with it. Does that sound like a right way of thinking to you?

Your struggle with SSA may not disappear entirely, but that doesn’t mean it will always stay the same. Neither do homosexual feelings have to totally vanish in order for us to experience a solid core identity in Christ, and even opposite-sex attractions and healthy relationships. All Christians who aspire to sexual purity and integrity still have the experience of being tempted by what the world has to offer instead.

So what if that white ice cap never completely goes away? As God goes beneath the waves and melts away the root issues, heals the hidden wounds and meets our deep inner needs in His way, the iceberg loses its strength. The tip may even melt down a little itself; though still visible, it will be much smaller. And if you happen to run into it, it doesn’t wreck you; it just bumps out of the way.

Big Fear #2: I’ll Never Have Feelings for the Opposite Sex

Not everyone who walks away from a gay identity ends up married and riding off into the sunset. So what does that mean? Are we who struggle with SSA more likely to end up alone, sad and hopeless?

Everyone’s struggle is different

We each wrestle with same-sex identity and attraction issues at different levels. The nature of what we’re really dealing with (the bottom of the iceberg) and our own experiences and choices can affect the intensity and the longevity of our struggle. We can certainly learn from others’ journeys, but make sure you’re looking at another person’s story accurately and not taking on things that don’t apply to you.

For instance, if you are a teen struggling with SSA it wouldn’t be truthful to compare yourself with a 50-year-old man who lived with a gay identity for twenty years before deciding to walk away from it. His struggle has the momentum of all the years he spent thinking, acting and relating to others out of his homosexual inclinations.

The temptations you face may be powerful and seem overwhelming at times, but you don’t have a lifetime of thought and behavioral patterns making it harder (so don’t start!).

Identity is Bigger than Feelings

Don’t define your identity-or progress-by your attractions. Again, attractions can begin to emerge even while you still struggle with SSA. The world would say, “Oh, well you’re bisexual then.” Part of our culture’s problem with these issues is that we let our feelings tell us who we are.

Don’t look at it that way anymore. Our attractions are real, yes, but like our other feelings they don’t necessarily tell us the truth all the time. Your attractions are an experience you have-they are not who and what you are.

“Most exciting” doesn’t mean most genuine

If you’re like me, you might find yourself wondering if sex with your spouse could ever be as exciting or alluring as homosexual temptations (and actions, if you’ve experienced that).

When wrestling with this idea myself, I had a conversation about it with Joe Dallas (author of Desires in Conflict). He let me in on something he’d learned from his many years of ministry to men who struggled with all kinds of sexual sin. Here’s what he said that I want to share with you:

“It’s often true that what arouses a person the most sexually may be (and often is) a behavior he or she has to forgo to satisfy their conscience and world view, making their legitimate sexual options perhaps less immediately gratifying, but, in the long run, more permanently satisfying.”

As you can tell, Joe is a pretty well-educated guy. He is saying that a lot of the time sexual sin can seem more gratifying to us than the sex God called us to have-in terms of temporary thrills, at least.

Why would that be? Sin is entirely self-focused. If you are looking at pornography or fantasizing–or really engaging in any kind of sexual sin–it’s all about you. Pleasing yourself is top priority, so naturally it’s going to feel really good (for the moment). In the end, though, it’s empty of the good things that we long for deep down.

God didn’t create sex just to give us a high. He created it as a way to make intimacy between a man and wife transcendent-that is, taking their spiritual and relational commitment and bringing it into the physical. That’s what the phrase “consummating the marriage” means.

The kind of intimacy we’re called to in marriage (and all relationships, really) can’t be self-focused. But each of us has a selfish nature which is going to resist that and be naturally inclined to temptations that please selfishness. We should not, however, mistake instant gratification for true satisfaction.

Know how your choices will affect your future

God designed us so that sex would be a powerful tool in building intimacy with our spouse. To be frank, when you experience orgasm your brain is literally stamped with whatever person, scenario or image that captured your attention during that experience-you’re literally programming yourself to associate that person (or thing) with sexual pleasure.

More from Joe Dallas:

“I’ve found that when men have an intense, ecstatic sexual experience, their brain records it for future reference. Then, in times of stress or discomfort, they’re reminded of the experience and may be strongly tempted to repeat it.”

This might be what Paul was getting at when he said to the Corinthian church:

Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. (1 Corinthians 6:18, NLT)

If we carried out God’s intent for our sexuality and reserved it for our spouse only, think how intimate this would help us become! But when we indulge in illegitimate forms of sexuality, our design works against us, and our desire for sin and false intimacy grows.

After enough misuse, your sexuality loses the power to build the kind of intimacy God created you for. Think about that the next time you are tempted.

Hope for the Road Ahead

So can you go from gay to straight? Hopefully you are beginning to realize that neither of these simple, stereotyped labels is adequate to define the mystery of who you are in your God-created gender and sexuality–and your identity as a whole.

Change may not be what we pictured at first or what that the world says it should be-it’s actually much more than that. If we were just talking about therapeutic techniques for altering sexual attraction, that might sound pretty disappointing. But we are talking about a very real God who is all about restoring every last bit of you, down to the core of who you are. He has so much more in store for you than this struggle.

It’s a difficult journey, but God has called us to something that’s far greater than we can imagine. That work will be reflected in the relationships you’ll have as God grows you up and teaches you what relationship is all about.

God is not taking intimacy away from you-He’s taking the counterfeit so you can experience the real thing. If you have a strong desire to get married and start a family, I wouldn’t worry about it. God brings everything about in His timing, and worry never helps the process (Luke 12:25-26). Marriage and family are wonderful things to hope for and look forward to, but let that rest on the back burner for now.

And if you aren’t sure you ever want to get married, don’t feel bad about that either. God’s desire is that you would experience contentment, and that your soul would thrive and bring glory to Him wherever you are in life, regardless of progress or position.

Your struggles don’t have to disappear for you to experience the life God has in store for you. If you commit yourself to follow Christ–whether in singleness or marriage–but are still tempted by the world around you, how would you be different from any other Christian man or woman?

I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.
(Philippians 3:12-13, The Message)

Learn more about the church network

But the existence of more important or urgent issues doesn’t make homosexuality a non-issue. The way we live out our gender and conduct ourselves sexually matters a whole lot to God. In the Bible, you’ll find strongly-worded writings not only about the negative consequences of deviating from God’s plan for sexuality, but more importantly, you’ll discover the beautiful creation He had in mind when He made man and woman for each other.
The fact that God made us male and female is a big deal. In fact, it’s the second thing the Bible says about humanity, right after the fact that we’re made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27).

Sex is also very important to God; it uniquely reflects God’s character and plan. He devoted a whole book of the Bible (the Song of Solomon) to the passion between a husband and his wife. Solomon lays bare the glory of sexuality, but does so in a very tender way that is never crass or degrading. The song reminds us again and again of the sanctity of sex and the importance of waiting: “Promise me, O women of Jerusalem… not to awaken love until the time is right.” (Solomon 2:7)

Our culture, though, has spent the last several decades tearing down the glory of sex, marriage and gender. Through every medium imaginable we are told in a thousand different ways that sex is nothing but a recreational activity, that people’s bodies are property to exploit.

In the process, many young people lose sight of the beautiful things God created them for, and are settling for something that’s so much less. Homosexuality isn’t the only way people sin sexually, but it is still one of many ways we fall short of God’s standard.

But if there really is Good News for those who struggle and fall in these areas, shouldn’t we be sharing it?