Hello, I'm a 16 year old male who's a homosexual. Can gays still go to heaven if they know they are gay but never have sex with the same sex or tell people they are gay, ask God for forgiveness every day, see help to cure themselves even if it doesn't work, and be the best person they can be, and they totally ignore they are gay?
Answer
Yours is an interesting and not easy question. What makes it difficult is that you are using a modern definition of homosexuality, rather than a Bible definition.
The word used in the New Testament for homosexual is properly translated "one who goes to bed with a man." So, biblically, homosexuality is defined by an action. The concept of being a homosexual rather than committing homosexual acts is a very modern concept. It defines a person by something other than actions. A thief is one because he steals; a murderer is one because he murders; but a homosexual can be one without committing a homosexual act. It is a tricky definition to establish.
It is true that Jesus seems to speak of the thought as being related to the action when he said "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matt 5:27-28) What he is saying, though, is that the thought is the parent of the action; the action had to have the thought first.
However, by biblical definition, a homosexual is one who has not just had the thought, but committed the act. We can not always control whether a thought enters our head; we can control what happens once it is there. We can choose to dwell on the thought (and perhaps act on it), or we can choose to banish the thought.
Paul told the Corinthians (1 Cor. 6:9-11), "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor men who sleep with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." That is the answer to your question.
Anyone can go to heaven. But it takes more than asking God for forgiveness and seeking help to cure yourself. It takes yielding wholly to God, being washed of all sins in baptism, and relying on God to take away sin and give you strength to overcome temptation. You can not "seek help to cure" yourself and be successful unless the one you are seeking help from is God. If you seek help from him, it will work. You can not cure yourself of sin. You can only rely on God to do so. He alone has the power to take away sin, and the only way to get to heaven is to have him do so. The sanctification Paul spoke of is the removal of sin. The justification is a process that involves your continued faith in the power of God to keep you from returning to a life of sin. I sincerely doubt that any of the idolaters of whom Paul talked considered themselves "recovering idolaters." They were former idolaters who had been forgiven and were idolaters no longer. The same was probably true of the adulterers, drunkards, and people who committed homosexual acts. Those were things they had been in a former life, but were no longer. They had begun a new life, free of those things.