Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
Passing the blunt between us, I shook my head. . . . “Is God trying to get my attention by making my life harder or something?” I said. Blowing out smoke between questions, said out loud but mainly meant for God to hear and relent. “I mean, does God want me that much?” As grace would have it, He did. (64–65) When, as a new Christian, I was introduced to the typical nature in which some Christians speak of their lives in the loveliest terms, I refused to give in to the convenient misery of being ambiguous about the truth. If the truth is what sets us free, then why not walk in it at all times? With wisdom and love, of course, but also with the reality that truth is where freedom begins.” Prior to that moment, the sin I wore on my sleeve was that of a lesbian: a label I had the courage to give myself at age 17. This label described an affection I noticed before I knew how to spell my name. When it happened on the playground, I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t quite understand why girls made me feel different. I hadn’t seen any Disney movies that gave me the idea to desire sameness nor had I been challenged by some outside source to see Beauty and the Beast and wonder why Belle couldn’t have been with someone as beautiful and biologically similar as herself. Where it came from made no difference to me. I liked girls, and I knew it. C. S. Lewis wrote: A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness—they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.” Apparently, this body was never mine to begin with—it was given to me from Somebody, for Somebody. (51)
In the book’s final section she takes on some of the hard questions related to homosexuality and same-sex attracted Christians. She first makes it clear: “I am not implying that because these men and women are still tempted with SSA, that they bear the identity of what some would call a ‘Gay Christian.’” She takes on matters of identity, matters of endurance, and what she calls “the heterosexual gospel.” Unbelief will always contrast sin with God. Making it and not him glorious. Making it and not him worth living for. Making it and not him worth dying for. (152) Having struggled with same-sex attraction (SSA) for as long as she can remember, Perry recounts her story with humility, pointing us ultimately to her good God. From the beginning, she tells us that’s her agenda: This scene is common nowadays. Christians can’t ignore the subject of homosexuality, as it’s so interwoven with our culture. We need to know how to engage with it, following the example of our Lord Jesus who was “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). And this requires us to pull up a chair and listen well to those who’ve walked its road. Full of Worship The thought of death was so matter-of-fact that it made an immediate mess of my mind. Like God had thrown himself inside of my world, in one immediate gesture, while I watched everything shred, fly up, and rain down all at once” (70).TGCA exists to encourage and assist Australian Christians to remain convinced of the truth and power of the gospel, to commend and contend for the gospel in our lives and our ministries, and to foster connections between individuals, churches, and other ministries so that we can most effectively advance the gospel in Australia. Since becoming a Christian, she has been compelled to use her speaking and teaching gifts to share the light of the gospel of God as authentically as she can.
Why hadn’t they ever mentioned the place happiness had within righteousness, or how the taking up of the cross would be a practice of obtaining delight? Delight in all that God is? Even their Savior had this kind of joy in mind as He endured His cross. So why hadn’t they set their focus on the same? In their defense, they were not to blame for my unbelief. I just wonder if they would’ve told me about the beauty of God just as much, if not more, than they told me about the horridness of hell, if I would’ve burned my idols at a faster pace.” After Adam (who'd been standing there with the wife he failed to protect from the serpent) ate from the tree, they died. Their bodies still stood, warm blood still pumped through their veins, eyes still let the light in. But what God said would come from disobedience, happened. Their refusal to trust Him over and above their inordinate affections, their distorted logic, and their desire for autonomy rendered them no longer friends of God but enemies. His holiness was actual. His judgment was real. And their knowledge of sin was now not just intellectual, but experiential.Just as Eve let her body tell her what she should do with it, instead of God’s Word, which would’ve reminded her of what it was made for, I was inevitably prone to the same kind of unbelief. However, Hill Perry, in her 2013 interview with Wade-O Radio, clarified that she does not believe that every Christian with a homosexual disposition will lose those desires. "If God chooses not to change my desires, he has promised to give me his Holy Spirit that will help me flee from them. There are people who were alcoholics for 20 years, went through rehab and they don't drink anymore, but sometimes they may be tested. If they see a bottle of whiskey, they're going to want that whiskey, but they have a choice." [3] Influences [ edit ]
When I looked at the sky, I didn't understand why it wasn't the color of my hands, instead of looking like my teacher's eyes. And why that one girl, who sat two desks over, made me feel weird. Or why my heart moved whenever she did. Or how, during recess, we'd end up in the corner of a Fisher-Price cabin, doing things we'd never seen, making sure our doing so remained as such.
Do you know why we have a hard time believing that a gay girl can become a completely different creature? Because, we have a hard time believing in God. ...” The SSA Christian that is called to marriage is no more of an apologetic for the power of God than the SSA Christian that is called to singleness. In both, God is glorified. (183) Alford said in an interview Tuesday that her daughter had been on probation since October for “some behavioral issues,” including cutting class and being caught with an e-cigarette. She said school administrators, “in a roundabout way,” told her that the probation wasn’t about her daughter’s “sexuality.” However, Alford did say some students were uncomfortable with her daughter’s “perceived sexuality.” I just . . . gotta live for God now,” I said with a tear-broken voice. A new identity was to come after I hung up. I don’t doubt that it’s easy to mistake the heterosexual gospel for the gospel of God because many have forgotten that the gospel is actually about God in the first place. When the Christian life has become a practice in doing everything else but making Jesus known, what would we expect of our gospel presentations? They will naturally result in the telling of something empty and void of power—more moral than anything and sufficient to make men and women believe that they can be saved by and for some other means than Jesus.”
If Jesus needed the strength to endure for the sake of obedience to His Father, how much more do we? Whether you struggle with SSA or not, and are a Christian or not, Perry’s writing will resonate. She captures the essence of the human heart by sharing her own, welcoming our questions and unveiling our deepest desires. Her tone, storytelling, and message make this a great book to hand to an unbelieving friend or someone from your church who has questions about or a personal struggle with SSA. Full of TruthI had no idea what would come next or how I’d have the power to resist everything I’d once lived for, but I knew that if Jesus was God and if God was mighty to save, then surely, God would be mighty to keep. And 10 years later, he is still keeping this girl godly. I WAS ATTRACTED TO women before I knew how to spell my name. My mama had given it to me. She thought it sounded dignified. Like a spine unwilling to bend. She'd heard it often in her younger days every time John F. Kennedy's wife was mentioned in the news. As for me, in second grade, I didn't know who the 35th president had been or what wife he'd let stand beside him as he waved to the world. All I knew was that our name had too many letters in it, and that my teeth had a small gap in it, reasons for which my ancestors were to blame, and that — according to my teacher — I asked too many questions. Sin, when in the body, cannot not stay put. It's not a guest that stays in one room, making sure not to disturb the others. It is a tenant that lives in everything and goes everywhere. It can bleed into every part, choking out anything holy. The glass shattered and broke when it moved in. Adam and Eve, God's first image-bearers, made to love and reflect God in creation, had now become the world's first sinners. She said, too, that she felt it was an important distinction that she wasn’t speaking at a Bethel conference but merely at a conference in which Bethel Music led worship.
Great Deal 
New Comment