Homosexuality Part 12

Submission

It means yielding and surrendering, or to resist no longer or to give way and to yield to authority and admonition. Submission for a gay person who has decided to step out of it means surrendering himself to God. It means yielding our total selves to Him including our body, our hearts, our mind, our will, our goals and our desires for ourselves. It means allowing God to work on our lives, to take the wheel and lead the path He originally planned us to take. Yes it also means letting Him to take charge of our homosexual issue to make the change we want possible in His time for we cannot do it on our own.

When I had my first sexual encounter, I have felt a sudden guilt. My conscience told me it was wrong and that's the role of our conscience; to make rightful judgment with what we're doing. I just tend to ignore it because I let my flesh desires to take over me and control me for the past 6 or 7 years. Simply I did not obey God and still continued to indulge in lots of casual sex and look what I've got, HIV. It's ok coz it's a consequence of my wrong actions and I need to take responsibility for it, all of us need to. At first I must admit that I have blamed God for letting this to happen and ruined my whole life, but now that I have become a Christian I realized that if only I did not disobeyed Him this horrendous thing would not happen.

Having said that, obedience is also submission. We all know from the start that we should follow God's commandments and His words; instead we opted to live with the standards of this world. We tend to take control of our lives and make self-rule. Based on my experience, my self was not a good ruler and I have learned that our self-rule is far more destructive than our sexual entanglements. Probably you cannot see this for now coz you might be successful or relatively happy as a gay person; but this the reason why God allows us to wallow in our sin until we come to the end of ourselves. That was exactly what happened to me.

Submission is also to acknowledge that we are all God's property; unless you believe that you have evolution from a monkey that I cannot force you. Since we're His property, our lives are His problem and not ours. We stop controlling our lives and letting Him to be responsible for it. It does not mean avoiding responsibility to our selves but it is trusting God.

This may sound scary for you but its quite understandable for stepping into an unknown area is really uncomfortable and really scary. But why do we resist absolute submission to God and refuse Him to allow directing our lives according to His plan? We don't fully trust God and we are sinners. We don't want to give up sex, going to gay bars, watching gay porn movies, cruising in malls or parks and other things we love to do even though we're aware that it was wrong. In short, we want to settle for garbage. These things do not make me really happy and you can ask yourself, so I am trying my best now to avoid all of these. We are worried coz we think that if we do submit ourselves to God and walk with Him, we will have an unhappy life. Well, I cannot say that I am happy now but I can say that I have never felt free and peaceful in my entire life as an adult. Probably because I have some issues that I need to resolve but I am alright and not sad. If you submit to the Lord and obey Him, it means returning some of the love God has showered on us.

So what will happen when you submit? Will you always walk in victory? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Some have surrendered to the Lord and have never again engaged in homosexual practices or any sexual activities, it was final. God took control, and although they felt temptation from time to time, the power to resist was there in ample proportions; temptation had lost its control. This is true coz sometimes I get tempted to hook up but for some reason, I will avoid it in the end so I won't do it.

Not only are we to submit to God but to His representatives as well like our pastors or spiritual counselors. It's important that we hold accountability to others for they are part of the church that will help us to make this change possible.

Look, all of us will be called by God at a certain point of our life. It's up to us if we're going to respond whether we will accept Him and walk with Him or not. When that time comes, you cannot bypass submission and go on your independent way. Submission is death to self-interest and birth to God's interests. As we build a love relationship with God, obedience will flow from that relationship.