Born Again This Way: Coming out, coming to faith, and what comes next

by Rachel Gilson

When we sit as judges over God’s rules, we make ourselves God. We say, “I will be the one to determine if this is right. I am smart enough, trustworthy enough, to do so. I have what it takes to determine if this is a good rule or not.”

We always resist worshipping and honoring him. We prefer comfort to submission. So we take God’s stuff and try to ditch God.

The designed purpose of marriage is to illustrate metaphorically God’s relationship to his people

How could I be caught between such contradictory desires? On the face of it they should have been mutually exclusive of each other. Yet maybe you too know how it feels to be torn between two camps. Your pull toward something forbidden feels as strong as a super-magnet. But it doesn’t extinguish your opposite pull toward Jesus, your real desire to honor him. You feel that you could be ripped down the middle.

Simply replacing homosexuality with heterosexuality does not guarantee faithful living. It may simply change the object of lust. After all, there is an abundance of heterosexual sin in the church.

Focusing on what to do because of who I now was in Christ was my key to faithfulness.

God allows us to live in this world filled with temptation. He allows our faith to be tested. But his desire and his command are that we stand firm.

Our culture says that all sexual expression and desire is good and right, as long as there is consent. If you feel it, do it! So we conclude, “I feel these desires sincerely. I didn’t ask for them, therefore they must be from God. God doesn’t make mistakes.” This is just a different way of shifting the burden to God. Saying that these desires are from God simply because they exist is a confusion between God’s perfect will—what he desires actively for humanity—and God’s permissive will: that which he allows given the circumstances of redemptive history. He is clear throughout Scripture that our desires are not a compass for goodness because they are broken. He is the compass for goodness, and he tells us plainly what pleases him and what will result in our thriving.

But God is opposed to both death and distortion. Though he had no obligation to rescue us, he chose to give us birth out of his own will (v 18). And the manner and purpose of his parentage give us strength to stand against our enemies. First the manner: we are told that he gave us birth by his word: “the word of truth.” We know that in the beginning, God created everything by simply speaking. We also know that Jesus, famously called the Word, is our Savior. His life, death, and resurrection clears us of sin, gives us his perfect righteousness, and unites us to himself forever. Not only that, but we have been given God’s Holy Spirit, along with his sword, the Bible, to guide us in all faith and practice. These are the very words of God, in line with his powerful word of creation and indestructible Word of redemption.

Everyone in our world feels the power of sex and romance. When we say Jesus is better than these things, we’re not trying to shrink them but to magnify him.

It is pathetically easy for the church to take good gifts and worship them instead of God. This has happened to us with sex and romance, and yet we act as if it’s only the world’s problem. They chase hook-ups and cohabitation, and we click our tongues. Yet we chase sex and romance too, but we just cover it with a Christian veneer. So we get the pleasure of feeling morally superior as we trot about looking for “the one”: that starry-eyed soul-mate spouse who will complete us. How foolish! The only “one” who can complete us is Jesus Christ, the Holy One of Israel. How could an image ever replace the real thing?

Singleness for the Christian testifies to the sufficiency of Christ—to the world and to the church. Of course, all sexually faithful people can communicate the worth and beauty of Jesus in this way—straight or otherwise. But somehow in this cultural moment, there is special potency when that is lived out in the life of a same-sex-attracted believer. Perhaps that is because the Western cultural chorus is shouting ever louder that authenticity is only found in following your flesh. To specifically deny what your body wants is a scandal in our culture. When pursuing your desire for same-gender sex and romance would publicly mark you as a hero—brave and strong—denying it makes you a villain.

Another reason why the witness of same-sex-attracted Christians is so powerful is because it’s statistically less likely for us to marry. So deciding to follow Jesus carries up front a very high “risk” of not marrying that fictional perfect spouse and attaining that equally fictional perfect sex life. Christian culture has made the same promises as the world: true life and adulthood is found in charming romance and hot sex. Just make sure you put a ring on it. Yes, we know singleness is technically commended in the Scriptures. But we can’t shake the urge to pair singles up, feeling concerned if they’re single too long. We’re u...

More likely I was trying to have old love and new love at the same time: whitewashing that tomb of old love with the magic word “ministry.” I wore the name of Jesus, but I was, in many ways, living like a pagan with Christian hobbies.

Naked self-denial is no salvation—it is only of value as part of throwing ourselves on Jesus.

When people are offended by our obedience, it is because our culture, both inside and outside the church, has bought the lie that sex is a merely private matter.

It is not hard to go to a Christian bookstore or website and find an empathetic teacher of this position. This is not new. The Bible’s words on life and sexuality have offended every culture in every age, as people have risen up to try to save God from his own bad image. What if it’s not him who needs saving but us? If God never says anything that contradicts us, if we find ourselves in total alignment with a perfectly righteous all-knowing being who comprehends all mystery, which is more likely: that we’re just like him or that we’re missing something?

I believe that one of the most beautiful things that faithful same-sex-attracted Christians bring to the church and to the world is this clear path: a vision of Jesus more beautiful than romance, of the Spirit empowering us to live in holiness, and of the Bible not as a death sentence but a balm of hope.

Everyone who enters Christ must leave behind the treasures of their former life. Is it even possible for us to make that leap?

The price will always look too high until God sheds the light of the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ upon the heart of a woman or man. Without the beauty of Jesus, we won’t leave the safety of our LGBT family.