Messages By: eden777

Let me get this straight.  People believe that they are born gay and so it aught to be seen as moraly right in scripture.  And so, if the serial killer is born bad does this mean that scripture aught to excuse such behaviors?  

I know this is a tad bit long:)  but when I realy share from my heart I get kind of long winded. But, please read through this because what I just did was poured out my heart.     

This is in response to you Jayde.   

Part of the sisterhood is the no judgment...the acceptance of all and the recognition that we all share something in common.  Am I right about that?   

I can remember my first time in a gay bar and in all honesty there was an excitement about that.  I suddenly didn't feel as though I was all that different.     

You didn't offend me because I knew that you were responding from your heart.  I recognized that and I respected you for that.      

I respect people's free will and I respect the beliefs of others while maintaining my own belief.  People either love me for that or they hate me for that and it's entirely up to them to respond to me however they choose to respond.  Likewise I alone am responsable for the way that I respond to others on this message board or out in the community.   

I know that you are not trying to make my journey look unimportant, it's just in oppisition to what you believe and in oppisition to how you feel is truly you.  I value reality, I like it when people are real to me and when people just speak what's on their mind.  We are all human with our own ideas and perceptions about life.  Whether it's true or not, that isn't my point here.   

Do you know where I struggle the most?   

It isn't so much with reckoning with my homosexual desires.   

Where I struggle the most is to realy, honestly convey the love of Christ yet be true to my convictions.  I say that I believe in the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of life and I still do.  And I can't say the word of God says one thing when it clearly does not.  Do you see my point?   

As far as your concern with wanting people to know that being gay or a lesbian is not a choice that you have made...I thought I was quite clear with what I have been saying and I have been kind of bluntly honest with people.     

I can remember before I reckoned with my same-sex attractions, which by the way I never said I had any control over:)  And by the way I have yet to "heal" from:)     

What is it that I am trying to say here?   

Is being gay or a lesbian your identity?  Is your sexuality your identity?  Where do you find your identity?  Is your identity the fact that you are gay?     

My identity is not based upon my sexual orientation and my sexual orientation has yet to change from being gay to straight.     

After all that I have said on this message board I thought people would have clearly understood one thing.  If I choose to be straight would I not be straight right now?   

Do I believe that healing is possable?  Yes     

Have I experienced healing?  To some degree I have experienced healing because my identity is not in being gay or straight but rather my identity is who I am in Christ.   

Regardless of how I feel inside I am a woman created in the image of God.   

I gave up on trying to be straight because the healing journey is not about becoming straight as so many people are thinking it is.   

And so what is it that I am trying to say?   

Sometimes healing never comes and sometimes it does but homosexuality can always be overcome.  There is a difference between being changed into the sexual orientation of being straight and overcoming homosexuality.  It's a journey of embracing the potential of the heterosexual self, there is that potential because many people have gone on towards healing and into heterosexual relationships.    

I know this is long but please bear with me here.  Thank you:)   

It's not an easy journey I choose to walk through but I am finding a deep sense of joy in the choices I have made in the past couple of years since re-surrendering my life back to Christ.   

My being gay or straight is not an issue with my family.    

 When I shared my struggles with my pastor and his wife, they loved me through everything.  They loved me in my youth and they loved me for me and didn't judge me because of my same-sex attractions.  It was a non-issue with them too.  They were more concerned with my heart and for me to keep seeking God.  They didn't preach to me that I was evil or a sinner.  They simply kept saying that they loved me and there was no condemnation for those who are in Christ.  They didn't preach condemnation but spoke hope into my life as they prayed that I woud come to submit my life to the Lord Jesus Christ.     

I know you love your partner and I know you love your family because you are human.  Human's do have hearts that can love people.   

Homosexual's are among the most hated and most rejected people in the world and to bring the parallel of the lepor into this is to say the least, how rejected people in the gay community feel especialy from the religious folk who can't see past the issue and see the person.     

I see the person maybe because I am the person.     

My struggles, my sexuality, same-sex attraction, gender identity issues have shaped the person I have become today but it doesn't define me.   

I used to hate myself for being gay.  Today I understand it's not the sexual orientation that is sinful, that so many people think it does.  If it were well, then maybe I am destined for h...but I know my destiny is in the hands of my God.   This is why I have been stressing behavior:)   

I didn't wake up one morning and say, "I think I want to be gay!"   

But God is good and He is just, that I know.    

And you know, the religious folk are held accountable for way more then those who are not.  To the sinner Jesus said, "Go your way and sin no more,"  But to the religious folk he called them white washed tombs brude of vipors,"  Why, because they forgot the simply gospal message.  They looked clean and pure on the outside but realy the were the walking dead.     

1Cor 6:9,10 says a lot but people miss the point when they fail to mention the verse that follows...   

"And such were some of you..."   

I can remember being in bible college...I know I said this before.  I was seeking God, crying out to Him saying, "I fear that one day I will stand before your throne and you will say depart from me you worker of iniquity.  I am afraid that after all of what I have done, I will never be good enough,"   

God's response..."So why don't you allow my Son Jesus Christ to be good enough?"   

My third year of bible college I finaly came to understand 1Cor 6:9,10 in light of God's love, grace and mercy....    

"And that is what some of you were..(some of you were homosexual offenders) but you have been washed, sanctified and you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."    

I have come to accept myself more as a human being.  The shame I once felt is not as much apart of my life.  God is first healing the shame of being human and having desires.  He is also bringing healing into my life from all the abuse I went through in my childhood.  God knows my heart and I know He loves me just as I am but loves me too much to keep me the same.     

And this is my response to the Gay/ Christian debate.   

Sincerly with love,   

Eden<><   

People all over this message board speak of how fulfilled they are in their gay and lesbian relationships and the only thing that we can do because we don't have an inside look of the person, to realy know if whether or not they are saying what is true about themselves we actualy don't know.  All I can do is simply take your word in your own personal experience.  

All people can do is take my word on this...I take all my needs and all my unmet needs and I place each one of them before the Lord and Jesus becomes my portion.  And in light of some of my needs that continue to go unmet, I am learning to trust in Him.  I am blessed because of that.  

I am not forcing myself to be with a man but I am not entirely closed off to that idea but I know for me right now, I am way more fulfilled and content being single.  Singleness is my choice right now and if the fibers in my being ever draws me towards heterosexual relating and a relationship with a man becomes possable then I will go down that path.    

Why be sad needlessly for somebody who happier single?  

We live in a society that says "what's right for you might not necesarily be right for me," It's called no absolutes. It is also called being another generation doing what they think is right in their own eyes.   

Can someone who is gay be a Christian?    

Is pro-gay theology right doctrine or is it in error?   

Just say homosexuality is in-born just like being a serial killer is in-born...   

So here is my point, that just because something just might be in-born it doesn't make it moraly right.   

Should the homosexual lifestyle be concidered moraly right just because it may be in-born?   

And so if something being in-born makes it right then what do we say for the serial killers?   

Thank you for responding because your response was part of the analogy. I knew the response I would get.  It sounds pretty rediculous to say that the behavior of the serial killer aught to be seen as moraly right.  That issue no one argues about but yet it's apparently in-born.  Which does create some food for thought.   

It was to point out the question...where do we find our morals?   

Who says one thing is right and another is wrong?     

I believe in God and because God exists I believe in absolute truth and if absolute truth exists then an absolute right way to live one's life exists. We have been created as men and women in His image, there is a responsability on our part to embrace who God created us to be as His image bearers.  We simply find in the very beginning God created Eve as a suitable help mate for Adam and both were designed to reveal God's image uniquely.  Uniquely as a man and woman and divinely together in one-flesh union.  To go against that is to go against the very fibers of who God is and who God created us to be.   

You know, here is my point...   

At this time in my life I am happy single.  I don't feel that a heterosexual relationship is possable for me right now and for that reason I am single. I have way too much respect for men then to toy with their emotions.     

There is a difference between trying to be straight and experiencing healing.  And if a man ever wants me in the future and things are different, then he will want the full package and that might mean having to work through some issues.     

It is a question of whether or not you can work through the issues.  If you can't then marriage isn't an option.   

If I were to get into a relationship right now it just wouldn't be good and I would have to say that if I did, it would be using the guy.  I have way too much respect for men to do that.   

A shared life is hard work, it is commitment and it's all about serving each other.  And when two people get together it is for them to work through.     

I know of many people who have worked through these issues and live happy lives and are happily married with children.  You can't say their lives are messed up.  I see vibrant couples, I see the challenges that have come and gone but their lives are not messed up that's for sure.     

I am writing in reference to one thing that is writen in this message and that one thing I will write in reference to.   

"I respect people if they feel called to tell people their beliefs about sin as long as they are being even-handed about all sins, but if only homosexuality attracts that kind of over the top denounciation, it isn't coming from the bible,"   

This is what I find to be true.  When people make homosexuality the worst of all sins and make such loud statements as I have read on this message board I can only see one thing.  And that is how uncomfortable they feel with the subject and around people who are gay.  It's probably hard for these people to see homosexual's as people created by God and loved by God as well.   

Sometimes when people speak the most loudly about any given subject, it's something they need to deal with themselves.   

I believe the way that some of the people on this message board have treated gay's and lesbian's has been sinful.  Their message was not from love but rather from judgment and condemnation.     

This has also been part of the reason I have stressed a few things on this message board...   

sin is sin and we are all born with sin natures.  What is natural for all of us is to be outside the will of God.     

Scripture teaches on the war of the flesh against the Spirit and Paul in scripture writes against having a carnal mind.  What I stress was that these scripture verses were writen to believers!   

To the religious folk Jesus said, "You brude of vipors, white washed tombs,"   

Meaning...you look all clean and pure on the outside...you have all the right words...and doing all the right stuff....but your heart is no where to be found near that....you look clean and pure on the outside but on in the inside you are the walking dead.   

Jesus had more compassion on the sinner and sometimes the church over looks that.   

Some people in the church find it very easy to say how homosexuality is an abomination unto the Lord but scripture also says that lieing is an abomination unto the Lord.   

This is why I love the grace of God.   

"For it is by grace through faith in Christ Jesus we are saved not by works lest any man should boast,"   

The works is not what saves a person....   

Anyone who believes and calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.   

The working out of one's salvation is between them and God.   

There is  a song out there on Christian radio that perhaps many of us who call ourselves Christian's might over look.   

If we are the body of Christ why aren't our hands reaching out...Jesus payed too much of a price for us to pick and choose who should come.   

So is lieing....  

Lieing is just as much an abomination unto God, how do you respond to that?  

First of all I was not representing pro-gay theology but speaking of what I have heard spoken most often..."If God created me this way then it must be okay,"  You are right...this is not pro-gay theology.   

I did however bring up in the discussion of pro-gay theology because this discussion is based upon the question..."Can gay's be Christian?"    

Secondly, this is not a discussion on whether or not God exists and it's not about discussing whether or not the bible is infalibe.  This is about whether or not gay's can be Christian.     

Thirdly, reading the bible in english is kind of like watching black and white TV these days.   

The word  "day," is not defined by a 24 hour time period. In the Hebrew language you will find that the word "day" in this text actualy means "time period,"  This portion of scripture is best translated this way....   

The first time period God created...   

The second time period God created....   

The third time period God created....and it goes on till the sixth time period.     

However long these time periods are, we actualy don't know.  Many people come up with ideas based upon another part in scripture where it says, "A day to the Lord is like a thousand," and right away think, "Oh, this must mean that when scripture speaks about the day's of creation, the first day must be actualy a thousand days,"  To say that is taking this scripture out of context.  A day is like a thousand to the Lord is only speaking profoundly of God's eternal qualities.  God is not only above time, He created time.     

Hense the phrase, "I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end,"    

Jesus proclaimes this in Rev 1:8.    

And on the seventh time period God rested...and one might note that the mentioning of the sun setting was not in scripture on the day when God rested but the sun setting and rising were mentioned all the other days.     

God intended the sabath to be forever....this is just some food for thought...   

The Jews of that day lived so much by the law that they created laws around the 10 commandments just so that people would abide by the ten commandments.  How on earth does one get literly hundreds of  laws from 10?  And Jesus Christ came and fulfilled the law.     

And Jesus said this is what sums up the law...   

To love God with all your heart, mind and soul and to love your neighbour as yourself.   

Christianity is not about the do's it's about grace.  Jesus being for us what we could not be for ourselves.  And Jesus said, "If you love me then you will obey me,"  He also said, "what God joined together let no man seperate,"     

This discussion was based upon Christian literature and whether or not Christian literature teaches that the homosexual lifestyle is moraly right.  And so I come into this discussion as a Christian because first of all, my faith defines who I am.  And then secondly I come into this discussion with my own personal experience.   

If one chooses to make this discussion whether or not God exists...   

That is a discussion for another time.   

As for the flood, even Ancient Near Eastern Mysticism has record of a world wide flood.   

I don't know about you, but to me, this sounds to me like there are literature out there besides the bible that speak of a world wide flood...food for thought...isn't it?   

As for your comment...   

"You must take a very fundamentalist, strictly literal, interpretation of the Bible to make such an assertion."   

Anyone who stands up for absolute truth these days are right away called a right wing fundamentalist.  If I don't stand for something then I stand for nothing.  The bible is either infalible or it's not and if it is and I believe that it is, then I just can't say I will take from scripture whatever I want.  Context to scripture is very important and if one keeps this in mind while reading through scripture they will never fall pray to false doctrine.  An instructor of mine once repeated over and over again.... context...context....context... and he did that to stress a point.  Taking the context of scripture into account will always cause a person to stop reading into scripture what they want to read, thus receiving not their interpretation of scripture but coming to understand what scripture realy does say.    

I keep on preaching grace and Jesus being for us who we can't be for ourselves.  I keep on preaching that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.     

I also make mention of what Jesus said,    

"I am the vine you are the branches, if you remain in me I will remain in you..."   

While reading through some of the faithful friends messages and then some,  I have been blessed.  

St Francis is an inspiration to me as well...  

I have read through some honest questions...I am not going to answer any of them because I believe these words were from a seeking heart.    

I will say this though...  

God is a rewarder to those who diligently seek after Him.  

Peace:)  

After all is said and done....do people not concider the heart of God.   

It grieves the heart of God when people are hurt and when people hurt themselves I believe it greives God even more.  People hurt themselves because of inner termoil in their lives based upon getting hurt in the first place.     

When people cut themselves it's because they happen to be so numb they just want to feel, and feeling something is better than nothing.   

Why should anyone care about what you do to yourself.  First of all God cares and if we are with God then our hearts cry should be the same hearts cry of our God.  If seeing someone hurt themselves does not greive us then we have missed something of importance.    

What greives the heart of God aught to greive our hearts:)