I want to change my life. Can you help me?
Question:
Greetings to you,
I have read almost everything that you have written on homosexuality and you have answered most of my questions. Still, I feel like writing to you with some of my other questions and feelings.
I am a young guy. Since I can remember, I felt attracted to men and not girls. I never masturbated to naked girls in my life but always to naked guys. I never had a girlfriend in my life, never had the urge to marry a girl or have sex with her. I always had these homosexual feelings and urges. But I never had sex in any form with a guy nor do I wish to have sex in any form with a guy. I think it is disgusting and vulgar.
But despite this, I have flirted and chatted with guys on gay dating apps and Facebook. We also exchanged naked photos and chatted about sex. I hate what I did! I know that what I did was wrong and against God's word. And if I continue I will end up in hell.
I love God and I want to honor and glorify Him in all I think and do.
Just yesterday, I deleted my Facebook account and all the dating app accounts. I blocked all the guys on WhatsApp. They may think I am rude for blocking and deleting them without warning, but I don't care - I must work out my own salvation now. I deleted all photos of them and other naked guys. I am also getting porn filters on my internet from my internet provider.
I am thinking of getting another job as well because of the gay and lesbian people who are working with me. One of the guys asked me to go and join him at the gym. But I don't want to be naked afterward in the showers with him and in so doing so open up more doors. Maybe I am being silly.
I really want to change and live a pure, clean, holy life that is pleasing to God.
Please help me.
I am looking forward to receiving your reply.
Kind regards.
Answer:
It seems you have made a good start in changing your life. You need to understand that true change requires more than just getting rid of sin.
"Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation" (Matthew 12:43-45).
If you only remove sin from your life, you leave yourself nothing to do. The idleness will open the door to temptation and sin, which will leave you feeling worse because you'll see yourself as a failure. Slip-ups might occur, but Solomon said, "For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again, but the wicked stumble in time of calamity" (Proverbs 24:15). If you are going to be righteous then when you fall, you have to get right back to living righteously. But better is not to fall. To that end, you need to fill your life with good behaviors so that there is no room for sin. Thus, find good hobbies that you can get wrapped up in doing.
You are not being silly by taking yourself out of tempting situations. Satan works to get people to sin a bit at a time. Each little compromise takes you close to doing the very things you know you should not do. In a discussion about lust, Jesus said, "If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell" (Matthew 5:29-30). Jesus is talking in hyperbole and not advocating physically harming yourself. His point is that sometimes you have to take what appears to be drastic action to remove yourself from sin. See Sometimes the Best Thing to Do is Run!
What commonly happens, though not always, is after a period of time of not being exposed to homosexuality you will find your desires shifting. Even though you stop feeding the beast with pornography, you don't stop being a sexual creature. Without inappropriate input, people sometimes find their desires first broadening and then refocusing. It takes time, but I have seen it happen.
Regardless, you have to learn to run your life by your reasoning and not by your feelings. Your feelings can be wrong. God's truth is always right.
