Now I see the disconnect - the sentence I was referring to said that one could not receive the gift without rejecting sin. The “If we cannot receive the gift without rejecting sin, then I submit that no one has ever received the gift.” was my response to it.
How do you interpret the phrase you included: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”?
I interpret it that, those who realize they are still sinful by nature, and agonize over their inability to be as they think they should be, are in line for the Kingdom. Similar to Paul's lamentation about how he kept doing that which he would not do and then not doing that which he would do - he understood his sinful nature and knew he was incapable of "going and sinning no more" despite the intimate encounter with Jesus and those who originally followed Him. The sinful actions of the individual are now attributed to "The sin that lives within the person, rather than the person himself". It all makes perfect sense if you believe that jesus did what He said He was doing and washing away all our sins, past/present/future with His sacrifice.
Jeremiah tells us that God told of the New Covenant to come where He would forgive our wickedness and recognize our sins no more.
If you think that homosexuals should be able to stop indulging in their sinful sexual desires, then you need to go through a whole day with absolutely zero sinful thoughts/actions/words. If you think you can actually do it, then congratulations - Jesus did not have to die on your behalf. The wages of any sin, even the slightest, is death - steal a cookie or murder the Pope - no difference in God's eyes - the penalty is death. After Jesus washed away our sins with His blood, God does not recognize our continued sinfulness as sin - if He does, the Bible is a worthless dime store novel. It is still right for us to recognize and detest our sinfulness, but we are also told that not accepting the no-strings-attached gift is an act of falling from Grace.
RE: If you think that homosexuals should be able to stop indulging in their sinful sexual desires, then you need to go through a whole day with absolutely zero sinful thoughts/actions/words. If you think you can actually do it, then congratulations - Jesus did not have to die on your behalf.
I direct you to what I wrote on a previous post. Here is what I wrote above:
The church ( including the Roman Catholic church ) has always taught that Homosexual desires,are not in themselves sinful.
People are subject to a wide variety of sinful desires over which they have little direct control, but these do not become sinful until a person acts upon them, either by acting out the desire or by encouraging the desire and deliberately engaging in fantasies about acting it out.
People tempted by homosexual desires, like people tempted by improper heterosexual desires, are not sinning until they ACT upon those desires in some manner.