It isnt an uncommon place to find yourself in, I guess the question is what IS holiness or a place of holiness? what does it mean to live a holy life? I think you will find no-one is completely holy, whether they be straight, pastoral or otherwise, what pleases God is faith, our trust and belief in him, the rich young ruler is about material things not r’ship and very sad if someone has used that out of context to guilt trip you 🙁

I always come back to this, I dont refuse to have God in my thinking and I dont worship the created things as mentioned in Romans and the book of leviticus was written for the “levi” priesthood, also if I wanted to be “holy” to fulfill scripture in everyway, I wouldnt eat pork, seafood or wear mixed fabrics and when I menstruated I would be in the desert for a week and then come back and keep my sick on an island and stone people for misdemeanors, also I would live meagrely and have to lock myself away from the outside world because everywhere I look I see semi naked billboards.

I think its terrible when someone who is as imperfect as me challenges me with things that make out they are “right” with God and Im not, thats very judgemental. I would be living a lie before God pretending to love a man intimately, leading him astray, if I am celibate, Id be in denial and shutting down the part of me God created me to be and that is relational.

Acoording to Paul its better to be single but thats accordng to Paul and that was HIS call and he looked down on those who had to marry because “if you cant control your lusts” 🙄 the comment in itself tells me he had no grasp of any sort of r’ship and the intimacy that comes naturally with that, its not a lust, we were made that way to feel that way for the one we love and you can still be just as dedicated to God.

Anyhow, after all that 😯 lol 😉 I encourage you that there is a place of certainty andits possible to get there, we will always be challenged and knowing your bible and some study always helps against tthose who try to turn us from our “evil ways” whether good intentioned or not its still a form of judgement……..I wish I could magic this away for you 🙁

Heya Sparrow,

Sandy’s made a great point here. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that being with your partner is a sin.

It won’t put your salvation at risk.

As to whether you’ll ever find peace… well, I can’t tell you. All I can say is that I DID find peace, and it took me about 17 years. For many of those years I was tortured (or torturing myself) to the point of agony, and thought there was no end in sight. But what do you know, there WAS an end. And I honestly and truly believe that God played a major hand in that peace. There was even a good old word of knowledge involved.

But this is just my experience. Other people have other experiences.

Other people have other interpretations of the Bible as well. That’s up to them. What I refuse to take from anybody is the idea that I’ve somehow thrown away Biblical interpretation just to ‘believe what I want to believe’. After 17 years of struggle I just find that insulting.

And the fact that you are struggling says to me that you too should reject any idea that you just believe things for the sake of convenience.

And the fact that you are struggling says to me that you too should reject any idea that you just believe things for the sake of convenience.

Far out, to think that we would believe what we believe for convenience, thats rough and assuming, I dont think you would be like that, youre more than that 😉

I too have been a christian 17yrs and the steps i took to allowing myself to be self accepting of my orientation before God wasnt done in haste, i realised that being a lesbian wont make me lose my salvation, i too am monogamous and dedicated my r’ship to God, im not recognised in marriage so i follow old testament model on that, who you sleep with or choose as life partner is yours always before God (minus all the concubines they had on the side 😆 all approved, now let some straight christian explain how that was right 🙄 ) orfeo is right, the peace comes and hopefully soon…….you wont lose your salvation, i wont either, i try to model my life after Jesus and follow him and many people from many walks of life did that even in his time.

Thank you for your replies!

I feel pretty flat at the moment and have talked to my girfriend so she’s not feeling great either. It sux!

Tonight in bible study we read James which says that faith without works is dead. Are my deeds grieving God? I read a book like that and feel doomed.

Ditte – I can totally relate to you. Yes, we do want to live God’s way but what does that mean???

Orfeo, what conclusions did you come to studying Romans 1 etc? What was the turning point for you?

Mags, the way you talk about God shows your deep relationship with Him. I feel like I don’t have this relationship and don’t really understand what He’s like regardless of my decades of bible studies and sermons.

Sandy, thank you for your reminder of first principles. I just fear my faith is without deeds.

I often wonder if the fears/convictions I have come from hearing the one perspective preached my whole life – one cannot just change a viewpoint so easily. So how do we know if it’s that or the Holy Spirit convicting us???

Well, this is a cheery post … sorry! I just feel a bit lost and don’t know where to go. Thanks again!

The more I think about it, it sounds like you need some time out from the bible and bible study just to help you settle, its not a sin and God will hardly be offended, right now you have voices and thoughts coming from everywhere, time out girl, truly!!!!!

Whenever I get flustered and confused about anything, ,I stop everything and chill, read a good novel and let my brain and emotions process and recover, as an ex christian counsellor I recommend it.

I once had a nervous breakdown years ago because of being “overfed” and it had nothing to do with orientation, as sioon as i looked at a bible verse id have an anxiety attack and my head would be severly done in, what had happened was i nlost sight of my salvation and the simple gospel and went on the road where i took everything at wiord value, didnt drink, condemned and prayed every single thought (half of which wasnt even bad) out, didnt touch alcohol and even stayed away from people and family and just hung out withcertain “elect” 🙄 by works people who claimed they were walking by faith in “the” truth, we followed everything to the letter to be perfect and holy, fact is, it made us self righteous and judgemental and bordering on the insanity that “we” had it right and that “we” would be exclusively told when rapture was about to happen 🙄 it was a very dark demonic time in my life, you wouldnt think so, i could prove everything via the bible but faact is, i was working to be right with God by my righteousness to save me and notrelying on the righteousness of Christ to save me. When we start questioning our salvation based on our actions, then we are in trouble, I confess Jesus as lord and saviour and the begotten son of God and follow HIS teachings, the epistles are great as a guideline for aspects of life but read out of context and read without understanding the background and the audience causes a loty of trouble and division as we see with soooo many sects……..

So please, just a suggestion, please take time out, allow yourself time to process things and just be for a few mths, it will help.

.