Countless people in our day have been deceived into thinking that homosexuality is a permanent feature of some people’s humanity, and that therefore God must love homosexuality. Because if He didn’t and yet that is how people are designed, He would be hateful towards them.

However, this idea is wrong. And this terrible wrong idea has denied an entire generation of young people the opportunity to repent, come to Christ, fight this sin, and grow in holiness.

So we want you to know the truth: God is anti-sin, and because homosexuality is a sin, God is against it. This includes the attraction to those of the same sex, which is a sinful attraction.

At the same time, though God hates your sin, He is still a God of love. Similarly you should hate your sin without hating yourself.

Here are three truths you need to know about homosexuality that will explain this further.

When God made man and woman in His image, he gave them as a clear pattern for the future of mankind (Gen. 1:26-28). He first made Adam, and then said it was not good for Adam to be alone, so He formed Eve and brought them together in the first marriage. Then God told them what this marriage was for: ““Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground,” (Gen 1:28). God’s design for marriage was for procreation and stewardship.

As the first humans, Adam and Eve weren’t just put into such a marriage as an expression of personal preference, but set the pattern for all humanity.  God designed men and women for one another, including and particularly sexually. He did not design sex to be expressed outside of marriage between one man and one woman.

But this perfect design was marred when sin entered the Garden through the serpent’s lies. When Eve was tempted to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we are told that she ““saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6). The word “desired” is the same word used for “covet” in the 10th Commandment (Ex. 20:17; Deut. 5:21), which is a sin. Eve desired the forbidden fruit before she ate it. She created attraction for the tree in her heart by listening to the serpent. She began sinning in her heart before she tasted the fruit from the forbidden tree with her mouth. This means that the beginning of sinful attraction, desire, inclination, or impulse, including the desire for someone of the same sex, is sin. It’s not “the way God made you,” nor is it even “fallenness’ or ‘brokenness.” It is sin. 

This truth flies in the face of the idea that you have a “sexual orientation.” The American Psychological Association defines sexual orientation as “an enduring emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction that one feels toward men, toward women, or toward both.” This was never considered to be the way human sexuality operated prior to Sigmund Freud, who invented it in the late 1800s. But the notion that everyone has a sexual orientation is considered the norm these days, and asserts that who you are attracted to–male or female–is not related to whether you yourself are male or female. However separating your sexual attraction from your own sex is a rejection of God’s created order, and means you define yourself by how you feel, and not how God made you.

God, however, has designed you to have sexual expression in marriage, as well as to desire children, for companionship in marriage, for an opposite-sex partner in the mission to which He has called you in life. Only someone who is unlike you in the way that a man and a woman are unlike each other can fulfil this. And this is how God made you, whether your current sexual desires line up with that or not. He did not make you gay.

The Bible teaches that homosexuality is not a God-given or natural personality trait, but a twisting and deforming of what God calls good. Biblically, homosexuality of course occurs when a man has sexual relations with another man (Lev. 20:13), and likewise a woman with a woman, but also when he or she holds a “dishonorable” or “consuming” desire. (Romans 1:27) When the Bible uses these descriptions of homosexuality in practice or in desire, all of them reflect things He hates and forbids, not unchangeable characteristics. And every biblical example of homosexuality backs this up, showing that those who sin in this way refer to desires and behaviors, just like all other sins and sinners in the Bible. For instance,

• Genesis 19:1-11 and Judges 19:16-24 explain how wicked men who were citizens of their cities wanted to ‘know’ travelling men as husbands ‘know’ their wives.
• Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 forbid a man lying with a man as with a woman.
• Romans 1:26-27 describes women and men exchanging the natural use of the opposite sex for the same sex in their hearts and actions.
• 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says that those who practice homosexuality (in thought and deed) will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
• 1 Timothy 1:9-10 rebukes those who practice homosexuality.

The biblical truth is that ‘sexual orientation’ is not something you have, like having brown eyes, nor is it something that afflicts you, like a cold or acne, but it is an impulse of your sinful nature, and something you are called to reject, not accept, to repent of as sin, not rationalize and excuse.

Those who tell you to live out same-sex desires in order to “be who you are”, or any variation on that theme, are in fact telling you the exact opposite of what is true. As we've said, if you have sexual desires of any sort, you are called to pursue heterosexual marriage.

Your sexual desires need to be rightly aligned with who you actually are: a human male or female, created in the image of God, designed to reproduce with someone of the opposite sex and to spend your life together with him or her.

Furthermore, this is true of all sinful desires which would stand in the way of holiness. We are all born with desires that may seem natural to us but which do not line up with God’s Word. Our duty is to recognize that it is not our desires that determine our design. We are designed to be holy like God is holy, and called to bring every desire that goes against that in line with who we really are.

People who are overcome with homosexual desires need to understand why God opposes these desires. God is against homosexuality because God is love, and therefore, God is anti-sin. But God does not merely condemn sin and leave individuals to suffer without help or cure. In fact, the opposite is true. Jesus Christ became sin on the cross so that mankind could firstly be completely forgiven of their sins, and secondly gain progressive victory over sin. The way anyone, including those drawn towards same sex desires, can receive the first is to turn from their sins and turn to Christ, calling on Him to forgive them. The way to achieve the second is to fight with daily repentance, even if it means driving a fresh nail into their homosexual sin a thousand times a day.

Galatians 5:17 describes the daily battle of every Christian: “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish”. The world does not want you to believe this, but the fact is that Christ can change homosexual patterns of sin just like He can change any pattern of sin. Yes, sexual sin runs deep, and yes, the battle is fierce, but God is for you in this fight. In His power, Christians can repent and live according to God’s design for us as male or female.

To be clear, if you have sinned in homosexual desire, lust, or sex, you are not “called” to lifelong celibacy, to a life of loneliness with no hope of marriage; you are called to repentance and freedom.

The first step in repentance is admitting that “gay” is not who you are. Instead, you are male or female with a sin pattern that Jesus Christ can change. Repent of your evil desires and trust in Christ. Live His morality from your heart and keep repenting of indwelling sin until it is put to death. Of course, all of us need to fight our sin nature for as long as we live on earth, but that doesn’t mean that patterns like homosexuality stay fixed. Sanctification, the process of becoming holier, is real, and God changes your heart’s desires, helping you to walk in His truth.

As is true with anyone, if you hold onto your sin instead of coming to Christ, you will not experience forgiveness. If you seek to try and have both, keeping one foot in the gay camp, telling yourself that your sin is your “sexual orientation”, you will not experience freedom. But Jesus Christ is worth the fight against our sinful nature because the tomb is empty – He sits at the right hand of God the Father, interceding on your behalf and leading you to greater and greater victory. If you follow Him, you can be free, and because you are male or female, you can love and marry an opposite sex Christian.

The truth is that you are not who you feel you are. You are who God says you are. Neither your flesh nor your feelings determines your identity. God does, and He created you male or female, including your sexuality.

By rejecting the modern myth of “sexual orientation,” trusting in Jesus to save you, and believing in the word of God, you can live in obedience to Him. You can have daily freedom in Christ from false identities, including the idea that you ‘are gay’.

God is against homosexuality because He is for our good. He wants you to be holy, to have right relationships, and to have a loving marriage that produces children. If you have homosexual desires, you must fight them in the power of the Holy Spirit, and pursue the freedom He offers you.

The fight is necessary because God requires it. The fight is winnable–and you should expect victory–because God is with you. The fight is worth it because God is worth it.

Written by Rosaria Butterfield and Jared Moore
Click here to hear Rosaria share how she went from being a tenured professor and outspoken LGBT advocate to finding faith in Jesus—and how that encounter transformed her life and mission.