P4CM Youth

[Daysing]

About a week ago, one of my friends sent me a video from youtube. It was a young black female, much the same age as my friends and I (21-23) and she was a slam poet. And her poem was about how she was saved by God, which is cool but it was the bigger picture. She was talking of how she used to be gay and how God had saved her and made her straight again and took away all of her "perversions." I was a mixture of confusion and outrage.

I would never want to change who I am because thats what I thought was needed to become a follower of whichever faith I so choose. But I was genuinely curious so I found her on Facebook, you have to love technology and I wrote her a letter. I asked her what its like to be reborn as completely different person, whether or not she still had urges to be with a woman (it only being about 9 months that she'd been saved in this way). I told her I didn't want to cause any offense. I didn't think that she would write me back, but she did.

I guess what I wanted was feedback because she and I have a lot in common being around the same age and ethnic decent and our affinity for poetry. And I thought I'd share her message on her to get some feedback, some thoughts from people on the other-side of the same spectrum. You all love Christ and God, yet feel and know as I know that he loves you the way you are. Heres the message:

Thank you for writing me...First and foremost..Alot of what you said in your first paragraph actually totally contradicts what God word requires of us if we plan on having a relationship with God so I plan on pointing you to what GOD has to say about everything and not my opinions.

First you said "I always felt that you don't have to give up so much of yourself to follow God. To deny who you are." Yet Matthew 16:24 says "Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he MUST DENY HIMSELF and take up his cross and follow me."
Also God's word says “If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not WORTHY of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you CLING TO YOUR LIFE, you will LOSE it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it." Matthew 10:37-39
So we clearly see from these two scriptures that we DO have to give up ourselves to follow God..ALL OF OURSELVES to be exact, and if we choose not to, we are not worthy of being His disciple. Christ gave us ALL OF HIM when He died on the cross for our sins, so why cant we do the same for Him? He is totally worthy of every BIT OF US.

"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." Proverbs 14:12

You also listed alot of things that you have not done "I don't sleep around, I don't drink. I don't do drugs, steal or any of that."
When you stand before God on judgment day, and if you have not repented of all of your sins, and trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord, your supposed good works will not get you into heaven. The Word of God says that "We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags"

"For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws. For the same God who said, “You must not commit adultery,” also said, “You must not murder.” So if you murder someone but do not commit adultery, you have still broken the law." James 2:10-11...So you may not have physically stolen anything, but if you have lusted after another person, or ever told a lie, you will be STILL be found guilty on Judgement day and will be sentenced to an eternity in hell. BUT, Jesus Christ took your punishment on the cross for you to be FREE FROM SIN... you dont have to be found guilty if you are willing to humble yourself and repent of all your sins, and trust in Jesus Christ.

In my poem, I listed many scriptures that speak on homosexuality and how it is a sin against God...

"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 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." Romans 1:26-27

'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable." Leviticus 18:22

You can choose to believe your feelings over the word of God, or know that HE will never, ever, change His stance on homosexuality because He is God...and consequently repent and turn from it.

Lastly, No i dont want, crave, or lust after women any longer. When I came to God, I knew that He had the power to remove those desires from me and He did. (Plus,it is so much deeper than homosexuality...the problem was that I was a SINNER in despereate need of a savior.. If i never decided to be gay, I still wouldve been on my way to hell for continuously sinning against a holy God....)It did not happen immediatly but GOd was faithful. God is not unfair God...He will not say "all homosexuals will go to Hell" and not give homosexuals a way out of the lifestyle and total freedom from it as well. GOd is a GOOD GOD
No i dont date men, if I wanted to, I could, but I could care less about any relationship right now. When it is time for me to be with a man, I trust that God will lead me to who He wants me to be with.

And I dont really understand your question about God making us all different...I do KNOW that He did not make anyone gay, because that is illogical. We are alll born into sin. So we are all prone to be in bondage to whatever sin we desire...that has nothing to do with God because God is perfect and holy. We humans are the ones that make the CHOICE to sin against God.

Sorry for such a long response but i really wanted to cover all the bases..Hopefully and prayfully this answers your questions...Know that God loves you
God bless!


I felt that it was a LOT of proliferating in a negative tone. The entire message is bible verses, but I don't know, I know how I responded. I did write her back but I just wanted to see others reactions and thoughts on the validity in her statement and the cause of the Passion for Christ Movement.

[koneill08]

Well I just spent the last hour typing a very long message only to lose it all...Ugh. Maybe it was a bit harsh and shouldn't have been posted in the way I wrote it or it was too long and needed to be shortened. Anyway, I will try and recreate it again as best I can.

I am so sick and tired of bible verses being pulled out of context in order to prove a point. So let me give my opinion.

Matt 16:24 was taken out of context and the inference the young lady suggests is that in order to take up our cross and follow Jesus, we need to deny our identity and personhood. That is NOT the context and if she had backed up 1 verse, the context for Jesus statement would be clear. Peter had just rebuked Jesus for telling his disciples that he would be going to Jersualem in order to die. Jesus rebukes Peter in return by saying "get behind me satan, you are a stumbling block to me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but mans." And then he goes on to tell the disciples that in order to follow him they need to deny themselves. The context here is NOT denying ones identity, but denying the selfish man interests. He's saying that denying yourself is about trading the interests of man for the interests of God. The context is about who is in control, who sits in the seat of authority of ones life you (the self) or God (Jesus Spirit)? Denying yourself does NOT mean you have to obliterate your identity or personhood. Denying yourself is about WHAT you do, not WHO you are.

God is invisible, astoundingly diverse, unfathomable, and unsearchable in his ways and characteristics. And as such, he has so much love to give and share. Because he is invisible, the only way for him to do this is THROUGH his followers. When we accept Jesus, we are denying ourselves. And when we accept and embrace ourselves (our identity, personhood, and all that makes us us) we are giving God room to live and breath in us. God lives in and through us, so when we deny our identity to take up something else, we also deny God his identity and expression through us. I would like to add that the concept of denying ourselves is also described in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus denied himself in that garden when he cried out "Not my will, but yours be done." He didn't deny his identity when he cried that out. In fact, by crying out this way, he was in fact TRULY accepting and embracing his identity. And by doing that God had the ability to express himself THROUGH the identity of Jesus at that moment. Jesus (and therefore God) was being who he was created to be, not rejecting or denying it. What he was denying was his own personal interests. He was denying the "what" he (Jesus the person) desired to do (or had interest in doing) he wasn't denying who he was in order to take up His cross and follow God.

The young woman also quotes from James 2:10-11, again taken out of context. If you go back several verses, you will see that James is encouraging his readers to remove all those things that divide people. He's telling them to quit being partial about people. Give up the cliques and groupings of people. The context again for verse 10 and 11 is setup in vs 8 and 9.

"If, however, you are fulfilling the ROYAL law according to the scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. But if you show partiality you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. Then vs 10 and 11 shows the examples of adultery and murder, and James basically is saying if you commit one sin (using the old law as the standard) even if you don't commit other sins, you are still sinning.

The remedy for all this is in the two verses that follow. I'll explain in a minute what I'm after here. James has just told them, stop dividing yourselves based on the law because if you commit one sin and not the others, you still are sinning. He's telling them, stop being so high and mighty by dividing yourselves and then showing partiality to others because of that stance. Don't stand there calling yourselves righteous, and snicker at others you deem are unrighteous because you use the old law as the standard of measure, especially when that's not the law God uses as the standard anymore. And he gives the examples of how this is so based on the old law. Then in verse 12 and 13 he tells them "So speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment."

What James is rebuking and condemning here is judgmentalism. He's telling them stop pointing out someone elses sin based on a standard that God no longer uses. James is showing the difference between the two laws that are at work. The old law and the new law. And the new law is the LAW of LIBERTY. He specifically identifies this. And he also told them what that law of liberty is. We no longer live by the old law, we live by 2 commandments given by Jesus. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And James tells them if you live by THAT law, you are doing well. But if you live and judge yourself and others by the old law, then know that the judgment for you will be harsh because judgment is merciless to those who show no mercy. Mercy ALWAYS triumphs over judgment.

There are many writings on this website and others out there, that show that we no longer live by the old law of right and wrong, we live by a higher law. Jesus fulfilled the old law, the written law. So we no longer live by moses law, the written law, the 613 commandments and other jewish laws that were written. If that's the case and the woman who wrote this is wanting to use old testament laws to live by, then she would have to stop eating pork products, she would no longer be allowed to go to the funerals and wakes where the bodies of the deceased are, she would have to quit watching football if she's a fan (the ball is made from porkskin) and she would have to quit wearing most of the clothes she wears. This website and others have much to say about the old testament condemnation of homosexuality and how we no longer live by those codes. And as far as the NT verses she quotes, there again are many materials about what those verses actually say and what they mean and I don't need to reinvent the wheel to place them here.

If we live by right and wrong, then we are living from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. And that's the wrong tree to eat from. We were meant to live from the tree of life. That's freedom, that's God's spirit/life within us.

1 John 2:1 shares with us that we will not be perfect beings while still in our bodies and on this earth. When we accept christ, we don't just magically become perfect beings, never to sin again. In fact John writes "My little children, I am writing these things to you that you MAY not sin (it doesn't say will not, do not, or cannot sin). He goes on to say And if anyone sins (uh oh, does that mean that maybe just maybe after we are christians, we might just in fact make mistakes and sin, even though we try our very best not to?), And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Oh boy, we are righteous because Jesus is righteous, not because we accept christ and all of a sudden become perfect and never sin again or be righteous or do righteous things in our own selves and power.

I'm so sick of people being shoved back into the chains of bondage living out of "right" and "wrong" and then putting that on others as well, and then worse yet, judging them as a result. We were made free in christ from the bondage of the law. I so desperately wish that we would give ourselves and others a break. We can't keep putting these expectations of perfection on ourselves or others, for if we do all we will bring upon ourselves or others is condemnation, despair, hopelessness, guilt and all those things Jesus came to free us from.

Please, please live free in the law of liberty. Be free of the chains of "right" and "wrong". Don't deny God by denying yourself. Don't deny God the chance and expression to work in HARMONY WITH your identity instead of because of it or in spite of it. Be free to be you and in doing so, God will be free to be Him IN and THROUGH you.

I'm sorry this is so long or harsh, I don't mean it to be. I just get so angry at how the grace of God has been perverted into a twisted idea of judgment and law. The spirit (life) of God is where it's at, not do's and don'ts, rights and wrongs...

Be who you were created to be and allow God to share himself with others through that diversity and uniqueness, not in spite of it...

That's my two cents for what it's worth, spend it wisely!

[Daysing]

Thank you so much for you reply. It wasn't too harsh and it all totally makes sense to me. And it infuriated me the way in which she attacked me, especially since she said she wasn't going to. As far as I am concerned when you say you aren't going to voice your opinion but then site things that support your opinion, you are giving it.
I grew up Christian but it isn't really my choice of faith. I'm more of a naturalist kind of girl but you made really valid points. I never looked at the bible as something in support of homosexuality, I guess because of how it was (mis)interpreted to me. You made me see, the truth in the verse. It was refreshing, especially having been turned off by her reply. And trust me, I shall spend it wisely!! Thank you so much again, be well

[antiochian]

Hi Daysing, and welcome. You must be a newcomer? Seems to me this woman has a very dark and dreary idea of who God is. More of a slaveholder than a parent. She's obviously driven by fear. I've found that fear-driven spirituality is lethal--it was for me, anyway. I felt depressed and never good enough. I had to keep doing more to save my soul. And more, and more. More prayer, more fasting, more penance, more more more. A miserable way to live. Regarding her "Changed" orientation, I don't know her and can't read her mind, but I'd say she's either lying or deluded. You can paint white and black stripes on a horse, but that doesn't make it a zebra.

I also want to gently correct your assumption that all here are followers of Christ. Many are Christian, but some of us are not, myself included.

[Daysing]

I totally agree with you that she is somewhat deluded and fearful. It's just so strong in her tone throughout the message. I think being fearful within the faith you follow isn't following at all. I can only hope that she lives a happy life. And sorry for the assumption. I didn't quite mean it in that way. I figured most here are enlightened individuals, no matter the faith. Oh and yes I am new here.