Three insights for understanding same-sex attraction and sanctification.
For born-again Christians who are still same-sex attracted, the world we find ourselves in has made sexuality central to our identity. Gayness is not just a way to act but a way to be. It is, as they say, “just who you are.” LGBT culture encourages us to find greater joy in identifying with sin rather than with the Creator.
By contrast, same-sex-attracted believers—like all believers—are called to find our identity in Christ. He begins in us a sanctification process, a beautiful miracle in which God enters in and starts turning the heart into the cathedral it was intended to be. We don’t just sit back and expect great fruitfulness to come from minimal zeal; we work alongside God to “act the miracle” (see Phil. 2:12–13) of sanctification into its grandest potential.
As someone who formerly lived in the lesbian lifestyle, I’ve experienced this transformation of the heart. But even now, when I begin to forget that I am loved, forgiven, and new, then I stop operating out of faith. I have to remind myself that the identity God has given me will always reveal the true nature of who I am.
The burden for same-sex-attracted Christians, then, is not to learn more about themselves or to “become a better you” as an entry into self-empowerment. Instead, the goal is to renew your minds so that you begin seeing yourselves in light of who God has revealed himself to be—and also so that you can glorify him in the ways he has commanded. This happens in the context of community, with much prayer, and with consistent, thoughtful internalizing of the Word of God.
Below are three frameworks for identity that I believe will help the same-sex-attracted believer as they “act ...
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