Dead Yet?

‘Die before you die. There is no chance after that.’ C.S Lewis

Boundary-pushing ‘gay’ films scored big at the Cannes Film Festival this year. England’s ‘Pillion’ centers on graphic sadomasochism. Featuring ‘boot-licking, alleyway blow jobs and orgies,’ ‘Pillion’ claims to be a ‘sweet and sensitive exploration of male power dynamics.’ Sweet enough for an 8-minute standing ovation. The Cannes crowd loved France’s ‘The Little Sister’ more, giving it a 12-minute round of applause and best actress for the lead who plays a devout Muslim coming out of the closet in luxuriant sex scenes.

Whew. Glad I’m dead. Early on in my struggle for clarity amid strong homosexual lust, I came to a realization. God cannot bless this. I can barter and gripe and self-justify, but in the end, God won’t confirm my ‘gay’ aspirations. Even tidying things up for a Christian friend-with-benefits deal can’t work.

Nothing can change the fact that I’m made in His image as a co-creator. He made me for woman. He remains true to Himself. I’ve got to do the same.

I had to die to self-interests, without a guarantee of anything except Himself. It was simple and needed to be, or I would have suffocated under veils of doubts and compromises. It had little to do with God removing homosexual desire. Through His Spirit, He cultivated in me the greater desire to choose Him. It was about looking Reality straight in the face and dying to my little ‘r’ version.

The only way to Pentecost is through Calvary. Some people want to die a little bit, just enough to be pitied. God asks for a corpse. He’s practical. He knows that if we leave the door open a crack to ‘gay’ stuff the winds of the world will suck us out like a tear in the side of a flying plane.

So St. Paul exhorts us: ‘Count yourselves as dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 6:8). That applies to all manner of dark stuff— hatred, envy, discord, outbursts, sexual immorality in all directions (Gal. 5:19-21).   

Then live by His Spirit. Pentecost is all about Jesus consuming the sacrifice, ourselves! Holy Spirit infuses the surrendered. As soon as I settled the ‘gay’ sin question, I was no longer dominated by lust. I struggled, yes, but so loved living by the Spirit that I could choose freely to not feed the monster. Lust usually whimpered away. 

I agree with the Psalmist: I love His law, the moral law—the law of Love, because it frees us from destruction for the joy of well-being. We are at our best when we aspire to grow in ordered love. We do so in the Spirit of Pentecost, according to the One who made us and who is faithful to redeem us, one step at a time.  

All He asks of us is to die. Are you dead yet?

‘If you live according to the sinful nature, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live’ (Rom. 8:13).