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What Does the Bible Say About..What to Do With My Sex Life If I Choose Not to Act on Homosexual Desires?

I am saved but you are right when you said homosexual is a choice. I don't believe I chose to be gay but I did choose to act on it. But my question is, if I never commit a homosexual act again, I can go to heaven? I know this sounds stupid but what would I do with my sexual life? I want to be straight but I just can't wake up and like women.

Answer

There are two types of people, the saved and the lost. If you are saved you will go to heaven. Paul says in Romans 6 that those who have been immersed have been buried and raised to walk a new life. He goes on to say they are dead to sin. That is, they no longer follow the old, sinful way of life. The walk in a way that follows Christ. You will go to heaven if you are among the saved. That doesn't mean you won't sin again, but it does mean that when you do stumble, God will forgive you. If you willfully continue a homosexual life style you will not go to heaven because you would not have really died to sin. If you continue a life in which you try your best to avoid past sins, and newer temptations as well, you will go to heaven if you belong to Christ, if your sins are covered by his blood.

What would you do with your sexual life? Perhaps you may choose to remain celibate. If you can not like women, the choice is limited pretty much to that. But there is nothing wrong with that. In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul talked about some who were "eunuchs" by choice, choosing not to marry but to devote their lives to God. He said this is not for everyone, but it may be an option in your case. It wouldn't be easy. But it isn't easy for a shoplifter to stop stealing or a child molester to stop his former way of life, or any other sinner to stop sinning. We all, myself included, have certain things in our past that we have to fight, but can overcome with God's help.

Thank you for clarifying on my questions. A few more have come to my mind though. I do want to go to heaven so I will try to stop continuing a homosexual life. But does that just mean with being with men? What about masturbation thinking about men? Or is that considered a homosexual act?

Read all of chapter 6 of the book of Romans. I was going to quote part of it to you, but realized that I would end up copying the whole chapter. Thinking of men in a sexual way and acting on that thought would not be living a new life, but holding onto something from a former life. To be consistent, this would be true of one who had previously led a promiscuous life with women as well. To want to hold onto the former life is to try to live in two worlds. Jesus' words about serving God and money would apply here as well: "you can not serve two masters." (Matthew 6:24)

So basically to sum up everything on homosexuality, even though I get saved and baptized and try to resist being with men sexually but sometimes masturbate about them, I would go to hell? According to my friend, who is a Baptist Christian believes that if you're saved, no matter what, you'll go to heaven. Does it say anything in the Bible about God not creating homosexuality? I know most gays say they did not choose to be gay but they did choose to act on it. For some reason I just started liking guys, which I don't think was my choice but like I said before, it was my choice to act on it.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in what I said. If one has begun a new life in Jesus the Christ then he will do his best to avoid his former life style. If one slips and goes back into sin, then all he has to do is ask God to forgive him and try his best not to do it again. God is in the business of forgiveness, not wanting anyone to go to hell. (Which is not to say that He will save everyone; not everyone will seek God on God's terms.) So, if you are a baptized believer, you will try not to sin, but if you do you can be forgiven. One sin or several after one is saved, if one repents (determines not to repeat them) and asks God for forgiveness, will not result in a person going to hell.

The differences between what I believe and the official doctrine of most Baptist churches are: 1) Once saved you may choose to sin in such a way as to lose your salvation; and 2) it is possible to sin once you are saved. Official Baptist doctrine generally says: 1) Once saved, always saved (in spite of over 200 scriptures saying or implying otherwise); and 2) if you are among the saved it is impossible for you to sin; therefore anyone who goes back to their old life even once was obviously not saved.

The Bible does not come right out and say that homosexuality is purely a choice, nor that people are "born that way." The main reason for this is that homosexuality in the Bible is specifically the act of having sex with another man. The idea that one can "be a homosexual" without participating in the act is foreign to scripture. It would be unjust of God to make somebody so they can not help but desire men, and then condemn it. The Bible does say that the natural (therefore inborn) thing is for men to desire women and women to desire men (Romans 1:26-27). So it does say that homosexual desires are not natural. Therefore they must be a choice. I recently read an interview with the geneticist who is the head of the Human Genome Project. He was complaining about all the people, including scientists and the press, who talk about a "gene for" all sorts of things. There is no gene for behaviors. Therefore nobody can say I was born to do a particular act, whether it be catching a particular disease or choosing to go to bed with another man.