This post is to me a God sent opportunity to once again deliver accurately the "Truth that sets men free". When last I posted the post you will find below about homosexuals I am aware from responses I received from it people assumed I myself was gay and just trying to excuse my own behavior. The truth is I am not gay but for sure I related to their situation in that I was and am a lifelong sex addict with the
addiction of masturbation and pornography.
Despite this problem I have always had a great love for and desire to serve God and to be a spiritual man. I have managed for the most part to keep this practice secret all my life and I have just up til seven years ago conceded that I might never overcome the addiction. The question I then asked myself was had this practice disqualified me from a right relationship with God.
Did accepting the value of the ransom sacrafice demand my ceasing and conquering my addiction. Was I doomed to the depressed spirit and bad conscience I had forever. The inspiration I strongly received on this matter assures me now that Salvation (right relationship with God) is achieved only 100% by means of faith alone. My awareness is now keen that there is both no way nor any requirement for us to do anything of our own power to gain a right relationship with God (salvation). The very act of trying to do so with that intent in mind nullifies the faith in God for salvation that is indeed the lone requirement.
Realizing now that the friendship God had with all the biblical men of old was certainly only on the basis of their faith and not because of their abilities to lead moral lives. Much of what we read about the lives of Abraham, Samson, David, Solomon and many others prove their relationship with God was only in spite of their fleshly weaknesses.
The notion that masturbation is any factor at all in how God counts a man righteous is false. As is the notion that perverse thoughts or images while masturbating is any more or less acceptable.
Just as eating meat dedicated to idols or circumcising oneself means nothing whatsoever one way or another as to ones righteousness. The problem is that anyone especially one who claims to be spiritual leaders would presume to judge someone by their deeds.
The only reason they seek to do so is to make themselves special as someone unique who on his own merits can gain a righteous standing with God. How false it also is the notion that God depends upon the elders to keep his organization clean. Their attempts at doing this by casting out the sinners by means of disfellowshipping only proves it is not God's organization. If it truly were God's organization they would realize that Christ came for the sinners and not the righteous man him knowing the reality being that all men are sinners. Therefore rightfully in Gods organization if anyone is to go it should be the righteous man that thinks his 'shit doesnt stink'. How ridiculous it is for men to try to grade sins for God as to what is worse.
God truly has no barometer for sin and at one time all sin (no matter what) incurred the death penalty that only foregiveness could rectify. He therefore instructed Christians "do not judge a man by his deeds or by your own deeds shall you be judged". The problem of trying to grade sins is complicated further by the scriptures relating that "lusting in ones heart is just as bad as actually fornicating.'
This was not meant to condemn the one (everyone) who lusted in their hearts (ala Jimmy Carter) but to liberate the one who actually did the deed. The actual act is no worse for God to forgive. Therefore he said to the pious Jews who were saying the wicked do these things "do you do them" (even if only in your heart)? If so they are just a guilty.
The end result of my hearing and accepting by faith this great truth was that I was instantly set free from my lifelong guilt of my addiction realizing now I was no better or worse than anybody else. The only thing that can now make me special or a friend of God is to be a man of faith by accepting the full value of Christ ransom by being wiped clean in the blood of the lamb though I was crimson red. I now stand before God a righteous man being declared righteous by God by means of my faith.
My clean conscious before God has allowed me despite my thorn in the flesh as Paul had down to the day he died (I wonder) to approach God in prayer to ask for and receive that which I desire on the basis of my faith alone. I have no shame or guilt for my addiction as God has changed my weakness into strength. It is through my special "thorn" that I can empathize with all peoples sin.
Zechariah
SALVATION IS BY FAITH ALONE
MY PREVIOUS POST
These are my personal meditations on the subject of
homosexuals as christians. I have perceived that the major failing of the Watchtower Society is that it has as the Bible prophecied "stumbled over Christ". That stumbling I understand to be in the sense that they have missed the mark as to the reason Christ came to earth and gave his life on behalf of
mankind.
They have resisted the awareness that the Christ came to the earth to act in behalf of the sinner and not the righteous man. He would provide with the sacrafice of his human life a new way of having a righteous relationship with God besides that of being good enough. The old law (Mosaic Law/Ten Commandments) demanded that everyone prove faithful to the law in personal deeds or acts or suffer the
punishment of death. This was always a impossible burden because under the law all are condemned to death.
It is only under the law that any person could earn a label of a thief, murderer, HOMOSEXUAL, etc. In examining the Bible to try to ascertain God's opinion about homosexuality I can clearly understand that in instituting the new law of love to replace the law code God was delivering the message he wished to have no opinion of this and would not judge righteousness by the deed but rather by the extent of ones love for him and his fellow man.
Peter recieved a vision of unclean animals wherein he is told to eat and not call the things God has cleansed unclean. This means a great deal more than it is now okay to eat pork. It is making the unbelievable statement to most people that it is not what we do by which God judges us but by the love we show.
This understanding of how the Mosaic Laws were done away with gives us new insight in understanding the main scripture used against homosexuals in the book of 1 Cor. chapter 6 starting with verse 9.
9
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the
kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
10
nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
comment- Certainly this is not saying that anyone with any longterm problem with addiction or spiritual or moral disease would be instantly free from his problem. No but he is made instantly righteous by eliminating the law which condemns him. The only way man can keep from breaking the law is to have no law to break. Though nothing about him has really changed the murderer, the thief, and the homosexual have been washed clean and are acceptable to God on the basis of their faith in God alone.
12
"Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"--but I will not be mastered by anything.
comment-
This can not be used to imply that God is endorsing any behavior as certainly he doesn't favor murder and theft. But he has chosen to ignore these blemishes in imperfect man by choosing to no longer consider them a criteria for judging them righteous. Therefore men can never be righteous by faithfully keeping the law.
That is impossible. Righteousness can only be by declaration of God based on our faith. Just as keeping the laws regarding circumcision and the sabbath no longer has any bearing on ones becoming christian so too being homosexual has no bearing on their salvation and status as a christian. The bond of union of a christian is only spirit (faith and love) not deeds.
Zechariah