On telling the truth that hurts/offends

Lots of people complain about ANY Christian who stands by the Bible on homosexual behavior.
I already told my tale of battling this temptation for years myself and how bad it hurt when people handled this truth-telling obligation the wrong way, but I want to illustrate the point with a different sin, since sin is the same thing no matter what form it takes.

When I think of people speaking truth that is not comfortable and someone being alienated as a result, I think of when I was admiring this particular group of people.
They do really interesting things like trapeze artists or sort of like dancing in the air and swinging around, but they are hanging by huge hooks shoved through the skin on their backs and shoulders. The swinging and such they are doing is pulling harder on those wounds. It would be pretty cool if they weren't hanging by really big piercings, but they are, so... it's not.

It was on Ripley's believe it or not, and they were explaining the deeper meaning s of "body altercation" it is a meditation/zen type thing but instead of relaxing into an altered state of consciousness, one shocks themselves into one through self-torture. Very demonic, and more clearly so than T.M. or some other unhealthy spiritual things people sometimes do. I was totally enthralled and in love with it.

My dad and sister got upset (probably the one thing they should not have done though, lose their cool and yell), and dad talked about how we treat our temple and quoted a verse, I don't remember which. He said, "drinking isn't as bad as that!" (which is wrong, getting drunk is a sin, just like this is). He said doing this to yourself is like doing this to Jesus (he was right, it hurts Jesus to see stuff like this as if we did it to Him).

I got offended and accused them of judging. I think I quoted or misquoted some lame verse all out of context. I went on like they were mistaken about what they were saying. My dad corrected my obvious error, which I then disagreed with and said he was judging and tried to act like I was being the nice, Christ-like one taking the high road and he wasn't, and like he didn't make logical sense. He also said having pleasure in someone else doing it is as bad or worse than actually doing it, and I think he also mentioned that Christians aren't supposed to revel in things that hurt God, and that you can't minister to people by doing that, but maybe my memory injected that because I know it now in hindsight. I'm not sure...
My sister said something like, "You know its wrong and you don't have anything to say to prove it isn't. You just won't admit it because you think it's cool." I was FURIOUS, and yes, I was further alienated from them in this argument. Would a different response have helped? I doubt it. If they had soft-pedaled it, like saying, "Maybe we see the Word differently and that's just fine. I don't agree with it but you should do whatever's in your heart. I'll try to keep an open mind..." Then it would have planted a seed of confusion more than I already had! I really believe that. Later, when I let God deal with me and renew my mind/spirit, I got over that unhealthy perception - with a vengeance.

Sometimes truth actually hurts. The truth that homosexuality was a sin hurt a lot when I was tempted for it, but I still accepted it as truth and persevered until I was free, until my thoughts lined up more with God's thoughts.. Even if folks get upset, when they are willfully doing what they should know is wrong and are choosing not to know better, they need to hear the truth even if they hate it, just like I did.

Since ALL sin looks like this (above) to God, telling someone its ok to continue in sin is like advocating for THIS in the name of Jesus and in the name of love - and actually very strong emotional bonds form between the practitioners of this "art." People are drawn to it, as I was, by a sense of connection, belonging, strength, "beauty", a lure of "freedom" (believe it or not), a "high" caused by an altered state of consciousness, plus maybe other stuff.

Now, if I were reaching out to the guys doing this, I would NOT handle it the same way; only a person who claims to know Christ who did that or was enjoying watching something like that (like I once did) requires such heavy handedness. If I was talking to the men themselves, I would have to be less "dogmatic", if you will, because they are on the outside. They need truth too, yes, but do not carry the responsibility of being salt and light that professing Christians do. These guys are not being hypocrites or misrepresenting Christ to the world; they are just the regular lost that all of us have been.

Today, I feel bad for those guys instead of admiring or envying them, and sickened by people who look on with relish. ALL sin looks like this to God, in the spirit realm - be it drinking, or porn, or homosexual actions, or B&D/S&M, or T.M. or Wicca or "the Left-hand Path," or lying, or stealing, or enjoying watching this kind of stuff, or anything else. Sin is sin, period. It is destructive to us on the inside and it hurts God to watch it, like this should probably hurt to watch especially if you were the mother/father of someone in this film, which I have cut screenshots out of to spare you having to watch it in case you feel you probably shouldn't or are not allowed to by parents (for good reasons).

 I think we all look like that (above) to God and angels when we sin and pursue sin, and like justify it or whatever. We sit there hurting ourselves like crazy and think that it's great. We might even want to let the world know or raise awareness of how great it is and how wrong anyone who insists that its wrong is. Other times, we might point our finger at someone else's sin who disagrees with us and say "Look how wrong they are...! That means I'm right!" or some other ridiculousness.
We just can't understand why a God who loves us would absolutely demand that we stop.
Truthfully though, how could He love us and not?

Godspeed

~Mother Star

On the Nature of Temptation

Not every thought or temptation we ever have necessarily gets encoded to long-term memory.
In order to report occasional same sex temptation or attraction, the mind/brain would have retain it. You have to give at least some amount of attention to something in order to remember it.

Depending on the wording of the question, anywhere from 10% to 45% of adult men report having fantasies involving same-sex activity. Those are just people have sat and entertained the thoughts for however long, possibly on more than one occasion. These things never originate with the person anyway, it all comes from satan, and not just same sex stuff but other things. We decide if we are going to hold the thought or not, and whatever else we might do with it.


Advertisers sometimes try to get people to associate products with unrelated things that they want or need. Sex being used to advertise credit cards, shoes, or etc is an example of that, as is Summer's Eve's unfortunate attempt to use women's career advancement goals to sell feminine deodorant. Likewise, the enemy tries to sell unnatural or even self-defeating things to people.

Like the advertisers attempts at sales, the enemy's ploys may or may not work, and may or may not even be remembered. He has probably tried stuff on me that I don't remember. I lived on the street a couple of times in my life, but do not recall ever being actually tempted by drugs. Ever. I'm sure he must tried it though. If you have any doubts about the rates of same-sex fantasizing, the links to sources are below. Keep in mind, even on anonymous studies, self report studies tend to be skewed by people giving answers closer to what their society would want to hear (See the section on "measurement bias" in section 2 of this UIC article).

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsm.12734/full
http://www.businessinsider.com/which-sexual-fantasies-are-normal-2014-10

There is a very strong taboo about same-sex activity and temptation among American males in particular. If there is self-report bias here, it is more likely to be making the rates look smaller, not larger. Not recalling ever being tempted by SSAs, or anything else on the list of perverse thoughts and actions in this study, does not mean it has never been tried on you, or that it never will be. It does however, mean you are probably less likely to commit that particular sin, even in your thoughts. Many, many people who do not identify as LGBT and never acted out, and may never act these things out, with others have committed this type of sexual sin in their thoughts through lust.
Sexual fantasy is, in fact, a lustful sort of meditation that many people who are physically very chaste may battle with on the inside, and which the Holy Spirit can and will deliver people from.

Godspeed.

~Mother Star