Can I live with my former homosexual partner if we don’t have sex?
Question:
I was in a homosexual relationship with the love of my life. We decided that "gay sex" is indeed a sin, and that we wouldn't do that anymore. I do honestly love her with all my heart and I know the same goes for her. We still act as a "couple" would. Finances are together, live together, sleep in the same bed, we do everything that a "couple" would, but we don't have sex or do anything "sexual." We kiss, hold hands, but I really don't think I intend any of it to be sexual, just an expression of love. But I have already asked Jesus to take all my sexual wants from me. I don't want them, they are really not good for anything anyway! Maybe I am just looking for reassurance, but could this possibly be wrong in God's eyes? The "homosexual community" is never given another option. Either be straight and live alone. I honestly don't want to do anything contrary to God's word, and I believe He knows my heart. Sometimes, though, I just struggle with it.
Thanks.
Answer:
A Christian's response to sin is to remove himself as best he can from it. "Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil" (I Thessalonians 5:21-22). When it comes to sexual sins, it doesn't matter how a person feels about the person he is sinning with, the response is to flee. "Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's" (I Corinthians 6:18-20). Personal feelings don't enter into the equation. "Love" doesn't change fornication into something acceptable. The only thing that matters is that God says sin is dangerous and that is good enough for the Christian.
Notice your response. Even though God said, "For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature" (Romans 1:26), your response is to find a compromise. You put yourself in a situation where is very easy to give in to temptation and congratulate yourself that you haven't given in recently. You would like to serve God, but you want it to be on your terms.
Either you believe God that homosexuality is sinful, or you don't. Trying to live halfway between is just hypocrisy -- putting on an act -- because you can't go halfway with evil.
Question:
I do appreciate your response, but either you are not completely understanding me, or have never been in my situation. I don't want sex, of any form. I want to be loved and love and have a companion beside me. Someone to share my life with, so a woman who loves another woman, who holds hands and kiss, but nothing sexually is a sin? I am going to take a stand and say no! Lookup romantic friendships. They were common before this world was brought the idea that sex=love or that love=sex. Or intimacy=sex and sex=intimacy. I do believe homosexual sex is a sin. No hypocrisy when we don't have sex, or even try to bring one another to arousal. I have found my answer, and I really do appreciate you writing back because very few people do. But I can't stand by and believe that God would want someone to live a life alone, lonely without help from another, or feel the affection and love from another. I don't want to be married. I do not find men attractive. You can't pray the gay away, but you can choose to serve God instead of your sexuality.
Answer:
Oh, I understood you quite clearly, but you prefer to pretend that you can live an intimate lifestyle with another woman and not be tempted. I know that isn't true. No one has to be involved in sin to understand how it works.
Unlike you, I also know that it was your own free choices that brought you to this decision. Homosexuality wasn't imposed on you, you chose it. In a roundabout way, you are correct, you can't pray it away because God won't force you to live righteously -- you have to choose it. Yes, you currently are not practicing the act of homosexuality, but you are attempting to get as close to the edge as you can without going over. It is that which I'm pointing is not a proper response to the danger of sin.
Question:
Just as quickly as you jump to conclusions about how I wish to serve God but only on my terms, know that for about a month straight I had stressed and agonized over this. Thinking about killing myself because I just couldn't please my God, because I didn't know what to do. He has changed a lot in my life and that is how I know the Holy Spirit is working within me. Maybe you should understand there are real people out there, with these problems, who want to serve Jesus, but just as much are human and err. For all have sinned, none are righteous. They want to know if what they are doing is sinful and how can it be when we are called to love? Because loving is never a sin! It is what the law hangs on! But again love does not at all = sex which is reserved for marriage between a man and a woman. Do you see now? How there are hurting aching people out there because they believe who they love is a sin! NO! The expression! How freeing is it then to know God says you can love each other! Just don't have sex! Have we become such a perverted society to imagine it is not possible for two people who love each other to not have sex? To not restrain themselves? Sad isn't it. This relationship I have is about love. And through it, we have both been drawn closer to God. Through it we build each other up, through it, we recognized a sin. I hope the Lord speaks to your heart.
Answer:
Now you are trying to justify yourself with improper reasoning. You claim that loving is never a sin. That is simply false. A person can love the world and be in sin. "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (I John 2:15). A man and woman committing fornication or adultery claim to love each other, yet it would be sinful. By your logic a man can live and sleep with another man's wife so long as they didn't engage in the actual act of sex; yet, "love" would make this situation somehow acceptable. You see, I measure sexual sins by the same guidelines and come to the same conclusions. It is you who decides that it can be different for you because the two of you are of the same gender.
I've known a number of jilted fornicators who thought about suicide, but that never made fornication acceptable. It never made homosexuality acceptable either.
The existence of sin doesn't excuse sin. "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" (Romans 6:1-2). Therefore, this line of reason also fails.
The description of love in I Corinthians 13:4-8 is between Christians. People can love each other without having to live with each other or sleep in the same bed. You can love a neighbor without being intimate with him or sharing a kiss with him. God commands love for your fellow human beings. You can have close ties with people you particularly like. But none of this excuses putting yourself into potentially compromising situations.
