Posted on 02/03/2015 5:29:16 PM PST by Maelstorm
Oh my goodness! I just reread what I wrote, and you are so correct!
That was inconsiderate of you to take my carefully thought out post and lift that one phrase out of context in order to destroy the meaning of my message. Listen, everyone is entitled to their own personal relationship with the Creator and how I interpret His message to me is not for you to judge. If Matt, should he read what I wrote, disagrees with me, then he is free to ignore what I have said. However, what he is doing thus far, which is essentially what you recommend, doesn’t seem to be getting to the core of his problem.
It's both inspiring and sad to read through the comments and easy to find those who have commented with authority born of their own beliefs and preconceived opinions, but clearly didn't read what was written.
I think everyone has a built-in addiction to something, but fortunately most of us haven't found it.
And more fortunately still, many of those who have found it, have also found the key to beating it, like the author has spoken of in his testimony and some here have said of themselves.
Amen, amen! God bless you and yours!!
Are you really so sin-ical? There is no salvation in us, none at all. It is all in Christ Jesus. We are victorious through permitting Him to save. He will not shove salvation down anybody’s throat.
Sin is not just a thing that God hates. Sin is also a sign that God is absent in some manner from a life.
Those who accept Christ as Savior do not suddenly have all sin erased from their earthly lives. They do have all their sin covered from the cross. This is a stark necessity by the nature of the case. The reason we strive to leave sin once God has taken us up in salvation, is because of love. Folks who pretend all their sin is extinguished short of arriving in glory are simply wrong. And it requires humility to accept that. It acknowledges that our sin burden really is on God and not on our own selves. We’d like to strut up to God and say look Father, look what I did, no sin... but we can’t. God the Son says look Father, look what I did, that sinner’s sin is now eternally paid for.
Humanity wasn’t created to be like we sadly are today. I have tried however clumsily on my own Freep page to express how voluntary love necessitates the possibility of choosing the wrong thing.
Those sloths and degenerates, along with average sinners and weak-willed folks, are AIDED and ABETTED by a culture that attempts to redefine behaviors as "diseases" (alcoholism and other addictions) or "sexual orientations" (homosexuality) and thereby relieve the individual from taking responsibility. It hurts them because it leaves them mired in their weakness with zero way out.
The wrongness of such well-intended "help" does as much damage to the spirit as the bad behavior itself. The best help anyone can give them is to love the sinner but hate the sin, and to live the TRUTH, which is that a person is responsible for his/her own behaviors, even when genetics/circumstances make one person's road rocky where another person's road is smooth.
Confusing homosexuality with sin, down the road, will be like confusing leprosy with sin was in the ancient world.
Homosexuality USED to be classified a psychological condition. It’s not any more.
As such, there’s not medical research, no search for a cure, for this condition.
Brain and endocrine research is still in the 8-bit stage, while other areas of medical research (the ability to manufacture human tissue and organs that are based on your DNA and have a less than 1 percent reject rate) are in the 32-bit stage, to use a computer metaphor.
Very, very few things in medical science are in the 64-bit stage, and forget about 128 and 256.
Also, don’t forget, there is very little money in cures of any sort, while there are massive jackpots out there for therapies. Type 2 diabetes and cholesterol control meds are still such massive cash cows, and the number of people coming down with this stuff is truly epidemic.
There are many who haven’t got a psychological condition, that go homo ‘because they can’. There is a TON of that in prison. Otherwise heterosexual men engaging in sodomy because its what they’ve got available to them, and ‘why not’. That’s a different issue, and its moral.
There are pedophiles who know they are pedophiles, can’t do anything about it, and take every measure they can to ensure they aren’t a risk to anybody. Between nurture and nature, that’s the way they ended up.
Do they deserve the salvation of Christ? Do they deserve to work and live among us.
It would be easier if there was a medical intervention for something like this, and I believe there can be.
Dennis Prager wrote an AMAZING piece about homosexuality, and how what is going on now is a regression from 1000’s of years of progress. It should be relatively easy to Bing it up. There was a time when a conquering king stripped a vanquished king and sodomized him in front of his people to complete the humiliation of the defeat and to further subjugate the foe. It was used as a way to punish and control, and it wasn’t about ‘lifestyle’ choices, or about homosexuality being a legitimate ‘gender type’.
Starting with the Jews, marriage, and family, that began to change.
Anyway, there are folks with legitimate medical issues, and those that decide to try it because they can. Two different matters entirely.
Homosexuals have a right to pursue a cure, just as pedophiles do. That right is being denied them.
Responsible in what manner, however.
If this is one more attempt to smuggle a “bear your own burden on your own shoulders” into the gospel, it is simply abomination.
Good post — amen!
I think drug use, or any addiction for that matter, is of the opposite sort: the instant gratification that appeals to the control freak within. "Feel bad? Do this and instantly feel better."
God usually or often doesn't work that way.
Instead, He walks with us from one end of the obstacle course to the other, rather than instantly taking us to the end.
As a result, we grow stronger emotionally, spiritually and in our love for God.
He knows what He's doing and He knows us better than we will ever know ourselves.
All praise and glory to God, the Supreme Healer!
Get off your high horse, especially if you think you have ANY business at all trying to intervene with ANYTHING other than love when it comes to a person struggling with alcoholism, addiction, homosexuality, or any other sin.
It is presumptuous of you to think you have ANY role at all, except to do the two main jobs God gave you: to love Him with all your heart and soul, and to love others as you love yourself.
I thought my alcoholism was a curse. I see now that it is one of my best and biggest blessings. God used it to help me find Him. If you have a hard time accepting the truth of the bible, that God places different burdens on different people because He knows that the ONLY way they'll be able to handle those burdens is through Him ... that's your problem.
I came to realize that what I at first thought was a burden, was in fact a GIFT.
Sin is also a sign that God is absent in some manner from a life.
All humans are sinners, every single one of us. Thus God is absent in some manner from every single life. That is what you are saying, though to what end is beyond me and I think beyond you, as well.
We're supposed to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. All the Law and the Prophets hang on those two commandments.
Whether or not you think God is absent from the sinner's life has zilch to do with your own duty to that sinner and to God.
God is love -- the bible says so CLEARLY and OFTEN.
Courage and Encourage [spiritual support for persons w/ same-sex attraction who are striving...
Amen!
Some times the answer is “no”.
Or, “not now.”
God has a way to cover sin. If that is not good enough for us, that is our fault, not God’s fault.
No, you could not help yourself... if you continue to think you could or have, you have only set up an achilles’ heel for yourself. It is pardonable but not excusable before God.
You can only accept the help that God provides. And no that won’t be the ability of crediting one minute of righteousness to any agency other than Him.
I say it to a very distinct and clear end... one of urging the utmost humility.
Sorry, you need to come down off a high horse yourself. Before these, comes acceptance of the loving help God furnishes. And it will embarrass your pride when you do. If you do.
I thought my alcoholism was a curse. I see now that it is one of my best and biggest blessings. God used it to help me find Him.
Well FRiend, it sounds as if you belong to the first group I mentioned:
"The world is full of people who have had the will power and strength to overcome their weaknesses or harmful passions and build successful, productive, rewarding lives."
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